We're now in 2026 and and the blogging backlog has only gotten bigger!
It's time to look back at last year.

2025 was a slightly quieter year when compared to '24 - which is understandable as for the last 6 weeks of the year I was preoccupied with other issues.

2025
Number of different games played: 156.
Of which were new (To me.): 59.
Total number of gaming sessions: 634.

2024
Number of different games played: 178.
Of which were new (To me.): 78.
Total number of gaming sessions: 704.

Top 5 games for 2025 were:

1. ​Tranquility - 33 sessions
2. Railroad Ink - 31 sessions.
3. Super Mega Lucky Box - 30 sessions.
4. Can't Stop - 25 sessions.
5. Splendor - 23 sessions.

For a 2nd year, Tranquility got the most sessions - although it is down from the heady heights of 50 from last year!
Railroad Ink gets 2nd as it did last year. With 33 sessions, it too is down, albeit slightly from last year - as is all the top 5.
New into the top 5 at 3rd place this year is Super Mega Lucky Box, a quick playing bingo inspired card game.

Now it's time for the much anticipated, highly regarded 3 Spellcasters & Dwarf Game Awards. The awards everyone talks about.... or not!

Game of the year: Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-taking Game
A few years ago, I gave The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, another trick-taking card game the game of the year award.
Mechanically, Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game shares a lot with that game, so it felt like a bit of cop out to also award it game of the year. However the theme in Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game is so much stronger than The Crew and I'm a sucker for Lord of the Rings themed games.
I really enjoyed this one and look forward playing The Two Towers: Trick-Taking Game this year which has only recently been released.

Surprise of the Year: Prey Another Day
This simple card game employs an elegant mechanic whereupon a card's gameplay usefulness is diametrically opposed to it's scoring point value.
It's also very much a game of playing the other players than playing the game.

Honourable mention: Lacuna
Usually I'm a bit weary of 2-player games where opponents go directly head-to-head but Lacuna presents this in such a pleasant way with an engaging core mechanic and excellent yet almost minimalistic components that it can't help but be charming.

Other honourable mention: Fighting Fantasy Adventures
Another licensed cooperative fantasy game! This time one that harks back to the 80's and the classic Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.
Fighting Fantasy Adventures swaps out the 400 chapters of a gamebooks for card-driven gameplay with 2 decks of cards instead. Whilst perhaps a touch finicky, Fighting Fantasy Adventures does a great job of emulating the feel of its source material.

2024 is over and my blogging backlog has not decreased.

2024 was a big in terms of playing board games - more games were played if my counting is correct.

2024
Number of different games played: 178.
Of which were new (To me.): 78.
Total number of gaming sessions: 704.

Compared to '23

2023
Number of different games played: 158.
Of which were new (To me.): 77.
Total number of gaming sessions: 577.

The number of games played were up by 20 which is nearly 2 a month.
New games to me were 78 which interestingly is almost identical to '23.
Sessions though, is up by nearly 130! This is quite a lot, it means nearly 5 extra game sessions occurred every week! How did that happen?

The top 5 games I played in 2024 were:

1. Tranquility: 50 sessions.
2. Just One, Railroad Ink & Splendor: 35 sessions
3. Can't Stop: 26 sessions.
4. Roll'n Bump: 25 sessions.
5. Sushi Go!: 22 sessions.

50 sessions of Tranquility, nearly once a week! It's easy to understand why; Tranquility is a pleasant, slightly undemanding cooperative experience that we frequently play as a palate cleanser after something more high-intensity. We tend to win Tranquility when we play it but occasionally, it throws a curve ball!
Just one remains popular with us, it's joined by Splendor and somewhat surprisingly (Considering it's disliked by 'someone' we play it with!) by Railroad Ink.
​The list is rounded off by Can't Stop, Roll'n Bump & Sushi Go!, all perennial favourites that are played as fillers or enders.

OK, now on to what's really important - The 'industry defining' 'prestigious' 3 Spellcasters and a Dwarf annual gaming awards.

Game of the year: Daybreak
Sometimes a game comes along that immediately announces its quality and in this instance it's Daybreak, a game about saving the environment. From the packaging and components, to mechanics and theme and even small details like putting QR codes on cards to provide extra info, Daybreak is something noteworthy.
More than that; it's presentation highlights some of the stark obstacles we will all face in the future.

Disappointment of the year: Horrified: Greek Monsters
The excellent formula that powers the original Horrified just doesn't quite work in this iteration. I've played 4 different versions of Horrified and this is easily thematically the weakest.
I never felt I was battling against the monsters of Greek mythology. It felt like what it seems to be; a reskin with slightly different monster mechanics.

Surprise of the year: Sky Team
I'm always a bit wary of 2-player only games, they often seem to resort to direct competition with your opponent.
I'm happy to say that with regards to Sky Team, I'm wrong. 
Sky Team is cooperative dice-placement game where the 2 players take the asymmetrical roles of pilot and co-pilot. 
It has fantastic presentation with mechanics that fit it's theme.

Honourable mention: Things in Rings
Things in Rings is a wacky kind of party game about deductive logic and trying to discover the hidden phrases on 3 cards.
It's a brilliant lightweight game, however, for me it's a semantic nightmare that drives me crazy and is unlike anything else I've played. it means I have to get a copy.

My backlog of games to blog about has not lessened over 2023 - which is not a good thing!

This was also a big year for playing games.
Breakdown follows as:

2023
Number of different games played: 158.
Of which were new (To me.): 77.
Total number of gaming sessions: 577.

2022
Number of different games played: 139.
Of which were new (To me.): 68.
Total number of gaming sessions: 541.

All the numbers are slightly up on '22, looks like I'm hitting peak playing!

​Most played games of 2023

1. Just One: 46 sessions.
2. Can't Stop: 29 sessions.
3. Lucky Numbers: 28 sessions.
4. Bandido: 26 sessions.
5. Roll'n Bump: 20 sessions.

​Lucky Numbers crashes down to 3rd place with a 'mere' 28 play sessions, a far cry from 2022's 60 sessions! Surprisingly, Just One jumps into the top spot and even more surprisingly, Bandido appears in 4th, more on Bandido below.

Anyway - enough of that, I know the real reason you're here; for the influential, industry defining 3 Spellcaster & A Dwarf annual game awards! 

Game of the year: Heat: Pedal to the Metal
It wasn't a hard choice, when thinking about game of the year, this always immediately came to mind.
This 50's/60's themed F1 game manages to provide players with some tricky decisions and risks to take using an elegant implementation of hand management mechanics.
I'm a big fan of a certain other F1 game that's been around in some form or other for years and it seems blasphemous to think it but Heat: Pedal to the Metal is as good as Formula De/Formula D! There, I've said it!

Disappointment of the year: Sushi Go!: Spin Some for Dim Sum
It's not that this game is bad per se, it's just that it does not deliver any particularly new gameplay or as good a experience as its previous 2 iterations. Hard to believe, but it's just a bit meh considering the pedigree it originates from.
It doesn't help that it's central premise (Or gimmick if you're less kind!) also makes the game a bit fiddly to setup, teardown and sometimes play.

Surprise of the year: Bandido
There's a heavy dose of luck that can apply to Bandido and I'm not sure if ultimately it's a good game or not. Even so, Bandido distils a cooperative gameplay experience into a single deck of strangely oblong cards in a package so small it easily fits in a pocket. With rules so simple and intuitive that anyone can immediately grasp play.
I play games with people who have varying levels experience in table top gaming and this has been a big hit with a couple of them, which is why we've played it so much in 2023.

Honourable mention: Joraku Deluxe
Set in Feudal Japan, Joraku is typically what you'd expect it to be; a game amount warring factions vying for influence and control. However, all of this is achieved with abstract, almost minimalist trick taking rules and delivered in a fantastic looking package.

2nd July 2023

It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for an evening of gaming fun and distraction.

Bring harmonious equilibrium to the world by seeking balance between the four elements, nature and spirits in the game Sagani. How is this achieved? By drafting and placing tiles of course, in this quite abstract game.

Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• ​Tiles​: Square tiles are used in Sagani and come in 4 colours, each one associated with an element, fire is red, earth is green, water is blue and air is white.
  While not double-sided per se, each side of a tile conveys some information.
  Front: The front will display 1-4 coloured 'arrows' pointing away from the card 1 or more of the 8 directions, the colours of these arrows will be in some combination of the game's 4 elemental colours. The front will also show a 'vessel' - which in thematic terms is meant to contain a spirit, it also displays a victory point (VP) value. This VP value is directly linked to the number of arrows; 1 arrow has 1VP, going all the way up to 4 arrows which has 10VPs.
  Back: The flip side of a tile will show a 'released spirit'. It will also show its colour and VP value. Thus players can ascertain how many arrows are on the other side but not their positioning or colours.

There's a fairly minimal use of art in the game, mainly being the 'vessels' on the front of the tiles and elemental spirits on the back. It's perfectly adequate and gives Sagani a clean and uncluttered look that lends the game a bright and colourful appearance on the table when played.

Iconography is also kept to a minimum here, consisting only of numbers and arrows. Players will not encounter any problems with iconography when playing Sagani.
I will add that the 'arrows' are displayed 'thematically', which means red arrows look like flame and so on. I'm not a particular fan of this as it made the arrows look less like arrows.

On to play
Setup

• Tiles: Shuffle all the tiles into 3 equal face-down stacks.
• Players: Give each player the 20 discs in their player colour to create their own personal supply.
  Additionally, each player should put their score token on the score tracking board.
• Starting tiles: Deal 5 tiles from one of the stacks into a face-up row to create a drafting area.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

​On to play
In Sagani, players will be drafting tiles into their personal playing area to create a display and also create objectives which will need to be completed. This is done by matching coloured arrows to their colour on other tiles.
For the most part, Sagani uses the typical turn order with the active player acting before play progresses to the person their left. However, once in a while actions will occur in order of scoring position on the score tracker.
In the active player's turn, the following actions are performed.

• Draft tile: The active player must draft a tile from available selection, how this is done is based on how many tiles are available to draft.
  • 2-5 tiles: If there are 2-5 tiles in the drafting area, then the active player must draft one of those.
  • 1 tile: If there is only 1 tile left to draft, the active player has a choice.
    Draft the tile: The active player can draft the remaining tile.
    Blind draw: Alternatively, the active player can place the last tile into one of the intermezzo spaces above the score tracker and then must flip and take the topmost tile from the draw stack. This is why it's important to have an idea what's on the front of tiles.
• Place tile: The drafted tile must be placed into the active player's display. It can be rotated to any position but must be placed orthogonally adjacent to another already played tile (Unless obviously, it is the 1st tile placed.).
• Place discs: Next, the active player takes a number of discs equal to the arrows shown on the newly placed tile from their personal supply and places them on the centre of that tile, thus they will take 1-4 discs.
  Insufficient discs: If the active player does not have enough discs in their personal supply, then they must take a cacophony disc for each of their own discs that is missing. Each cacophony disc taken will cost the active player -2VPs! However, players retain any cacophony discs they get which can be reused later in the game.
• Match arrows: Now the active player should check all the 'uncovered' arrows on all their tiles.
  Any arrow(s) that is pointing directly at a tile which matches the arrow's colour (Regardless of distance.) can be 'resolved'. This is done by taking a disc from the centre of that tile and covering that particular arrow.
  After a tile is placed, it is possible to resolve multiple arrows across multiple tiles.
• Score tiles: If all the arrows on a particular tile have been covered. That tile has been completed.
  The active player should return the discs to their personal supply, this then frees the discs - including any cacophony discs to be used on other tiles later on in the game. Next, flip the tile and then score it on the score tracker. A flipped tile can still be used to resolve other arrows.
• End of turn: A couple of events may occur at the end of the active player's turn.
  • Intermezzo: If at the end of a player's turn all 4 intermezzo spaces are filled with tiles, then the game goes to a intermezzo round.
    Draft intermezzo tiles: Players may now draft one of the tiles on the intermezzo spaces. This is not done in the usual turn order. Instead the player with the lowest score goes first and so forth until the player with the highest score goes last. Any tiles taken are placed with the usual placement rules.
    Discard tiles: If none of the 4 available tiles on intermezzo spaces were taken, then all 4 are discarded out of the game. If at least 1 was taken, the others remain.
  • Refill drafting area: If there are no tiles in the drafting area at the end of a player's turn, draw 5 new tiles.
  • Next player: Play no progresses to the player on the left of the active player.

Endgame
Play progress until the scoring threshold is reached on the score tracker, this is dependant on player count.
Play then continues until all players have had equal turns.

Score are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Sagani's theme is pretty thin and almost negligible.
Elements and spirits? Tiles and arrows? It all feels a bit forced and if theme is important to you, then you may find Sagani a little unengaging. For me, it's not too much of an issue and didn't put me off the game.

Mechanically, Sagani almost feels like more of a puzzle than a tile-laying game. It's all about the optimal placement of those tiles and putting down a tile that will match up the most arrows. Players will find themselves placing tiles in such a way that they will hope to get the right coloured tile later in the game.
Sometimes it felt like an exercise in frustration, I found myself wanting to complete every tile and essentially solve the puzzle but in a game like this, that's never possible.

This brings me to an interesting element of the mechanics; namely having a limited number of discs to place on tiles.
​It means that playing tiles - particularly the higher value tiles that might not be completed for while is a twofold risk, not only may the tile not get completed but it also ties up the disks, potentially forcing players to take cacophony discs. The penalties for taking a couple isn't too great but it's something to avoid if you can.

This is balanced with how the higher value tiles genuinely offer more value.
E.g.
A 1VP tile requires 1 arrow to be resolved, earning 1VP 'per resolution'.
A 10vp tile requires 4 arrows to be resolved, earning 2.5VP 'per resolution'.
It means a 10VP tiles offer much better efficiency over any other tiles provided it can be completed.
It's a good implementation of an element of risk/reward that forces players to consider short and long term goals.

There's also a higher level of play that comes from watching other players and potentially drafting a tile they might need.

Sagani is also pretty straightforward and accessible to non-gamers, the basic concept of pointing an arrow at its particular colour is easily understood, the only wrinkle being the intermezzo rules which are a touch fiddly but nothing close to a game breaker.

However, while I feel that Sagani has solid gameplay, I also feel that the light rules that makes it accessible do mean it doesn't really stand out from the crowd for me. There are plenty of games that pretty much do what Sagani does just as well.
I'd happily play Sagani if someone else wanted to but personally, I can't think why I'd choose it over any of the other good drafting and tile laying games.

I do think that this would be a good introductory game to people unfamiliar with this style of game.

Finally, here are the stats for June '23.

​The first plays for June were nearly triple for May (Which granted was only 3.) and the total different games were up by 3 from 32.

First plays: 8 and 3 of those were on the same day - which is identical to all the first plays last month!
Games played: 35

Thursday 29th - Aldershot
Deep Sea Adventure 
Isle of Skye

Tuesday 27th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Machi Koro 2
Stockpile - First Play!

Sunday 25th Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers 
Can't Stop
Roll'n Bump 
Cloud City 
Railroad Ink 
Stella - Dixit Universe 
Azul

Thursday 22nd - Aldershot
Durian
Star Trek Chrono-Trek

Tuesday 20th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Dice City - First Play!

Sunday 18th Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers 
Love Letter
Just One 
Space Base 
Via Magica 
Carcassonne 
Legends of Hellas 

Thursday 15th - Aldershot
Formula Dé Mini - First Play!
Durian
Trains 

Sunday 11th Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers 
Can't Stop
Gizmos 
Just One 
Roll'n Bump 
Tranquillity The Ascent 
Line It - First Play!

Saturday evening 10th Board Game Arena
Bandido

Saturday day 10th The Sovereigns
Cascadia 
Fluxx
Love Letter 

Thursday 8th June - Aldershot
Village Rails - First Play!
Star Trek Chrono-Trek - First Play!
Mint Delivery - First Play!
Scout 
Durian

Tuesday 6th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Scout
Dice Hospital 

Sunday 4th Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers
Can't Stop 
Love Letter 
Sushi Go! 
Parks 
Just One 
Next Station: Tokyo - First Play!

27th June 2023

It's a Tuesday evening which means its time for some gaming goodness with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns.

Indulge in some power dressing with a shoulder-padded jacket while you invest in frozen concentrated orange juice and don't for get to, buy, sell, sell! 

Earn more than all your opponents in Stockpile, a game about manipulating the stock market.

Player board: Stylised after a notepad of sorts. Each player gets one of these in their player colour. These board are large enough for spaces to hold 2 stacks of cards which are marked as 'stock' and 'split stock'.
They are used to store stock cards that players acquire, stock cards stored here are always stored face-down.

Stock ticker tokens: These ring-shaped tokens are used to track the values of each company's stock.

Stockpile's components are all good quality, the tokens, boards, cards and meeples are what you'd expect from a modern game. They seem suitably sturdy.
Using small, laminated cards for cash is a little unusual but it works.

There's some nice use of colour on the main board which consists of some art that depicts it as a a office desk.
For the most part though, artwork in Stockpile consists of logos, either for the 6 different businesses or the game itself. It's fairly straightforward art but it's also colourful, uncluttered and gives the game a vibrant appearance.

A fairly low amount of Iconography is used in Stockpile. There some icons to represent the different companies and indicate changes in stock value but that's about it. It's all self-explanatory and doesn't present a barrier to players.

How's it play?
Setup

• Game board: Put the game board into the central area and place out the money to create a 'bank'.
  Stock prices: Place the stock ticker token for each companies on their starting spots.
  Turn marker: Place the turn marker on its starting spot on the round tracker, player count will determine which spot it goes on to.
• Cards: First sort the cards into their 3 types (Market cards, company cards & forecast cards.) then give each player 1 stock card from each of the 6 companies. Players should place this card on their player board on the stock portfolio side.
  Finally, shuffle each type of card into it's own face-down deck to create 3 decks
• Players: Give each player the player board and meeple in their colour.
  ​Money: Deal starting funds to each player.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

​On to play
In Stockpile, players will first be creating pile of stocks (Stockpiles if you will!), then they will be bidding on those piles. Furthermore, they will be doing this with limited knowledge of what will be happening to the stock prices and what lies in the piles of stock.
Stockpile is played over a number of phases each round.

• Information phase: Deal 1 company card and 1 forecast card to each player, which they should keep hidden. This means each player knows what will happen to the stock price of exactly 1 company during this round.
  Next deal 1 of each type face-up on their respective spaces on the game board, this represents open knowledge that particular company.
  Finally, with the remaining cards, create a face-down stack of each, these will be revealed later.
• Supply phase: During this phase, the stockpiles will be created, one each below a bidding tracks.
  Player count: The number of bidding tracks used is equal to the player count and thus the stockpiles created will be equal to the number of bidding tracks used.
  First card: Draw 1 card form the market deck for each bidding track being used in the game and place it face-up below its pertinent bidding track.
  This creates the start of each stockpile.
  Deal cards: Now deal 2 cards from the market deck to each player. These should be kept separate from any cards they already have on their player board. They should also be kept hidden from other players.
  Play cards: Now, going in turn order, each player should play both of the cards they were just dealt.
  They can be played in any order to separate stockpiles, or the same one.
  However, one card must be played face-up and the other must be played face-down. This means that stockpiles will end up having some sort of mix of face-up and face-down cards.
• Demand phase: During this phase is where most of the game's activity takes place, players will bid for the available stockpiles which were created in the previous phase using the bidding track.
  The following rules apply to bidding.
  Turn order: Bidding goes in turn order with the active player bidding before play progresses to the player on their left.
  Cash only: During bidding, player cannot bid more than the money they currently possess.
  Bids: The active player may place their bidding meeple on any empty space on any bidding track. A player can even choose to immediately bid on the maximum 25 spot if they wish to.
  any bidding track that has a meeple on the 25 space is considered locked and cannot be subject to any further bidding.
  Other bids: However, if another player has already placed a bid on a bidding track, any bid that follows must be a higher value, it cannot match or undercut the current bid.
  ​Outbidded player: When a player is outbidded, their meeple is returned to them, giving them the opportunity to bid again on their next turn.
  There can only ever be 1 meeple on each bidding track.
  Passing: If a player's meeple is still on a bidding track when it comes to their turn, then they skip bidding for this turn. They are not 'out' though and it's entirely possible that the meeple will be returned in a subsequent round.
  End of bidding: When each bidding track has 1 meeple on it, bidding has ended.
  Pay your dues: Players now pay their winning bid to the banks and collect their cards, this includes any face-down cards.
  Trading free cards, regardless of whether they were face-down or not, will have an effect after being collected which will require the collecting player to pay extra money to the bank.
• Action phase: As well as collecting stock cards and being stung my trading fee cards, players may also collect action cards. All action cards collected must be resolved and this is done in turn order.
  Action cards may either push up the value of a company's stock or push it down, the collecting player chooses which company or companies are affected. Once all actions have been resolved, the phase is over.
• Selling phase: During this phase, players may choose to sell shares they control from their player board to the bank. This can be either from the stock portfolio or split-stock portfolio, although stock in the split stock portfolio counts as 2 stocks, so can be sold for double the normal value. The money gained from selling is equal to the stock value of the company whose shares are being sold.
• Movement phase: After the opportunity to sell stocks in the previous phase, it's time to see how their prices will fluctuate.
  First, in turn order, players reveal their company and forecast cards, then the stock's value for that company is altered accordingly - more on this below.
  Next, the stock value for the company with open knowledge is resolved and finally, the face-down company and forecast cards are revealed one-at-a-time and resolved.
  Forecast cards: These do 1 of 3 things to stock value, they push it up or down by the displayed value or they pay out dividends which earns players with that stock money but does not alter its value.
  There are also 2 further effects that may be triggered by changes to stock values.
  Split stock: If a stock's value is moved above 10, the stock is then split.
  This means the value is reset to 5 and any stock players had in their stock portfolio is moved into their split stock portfolio. Thus the value is halved but the stock is doubled, leaving room for growth later.
  Bankruptcy: If a stock's value goes below 1, then that company has gone bankrupt!
  The value is reset to 5 and all players must discard all stock they had in that company from both of their portfolios, ouch!
• Next round: Move the round tracker to the next spot on its track. The player to the left of the current first player becomes the first player in the following round.
  A new round begins with the next information phase.

Endgame
The game ends when the round tracker reaches the end of its track!
​There are now a couple of final phases that must be resolved.

• Majority: For each of the 6 companies, all players count up the shares they have in that company - split stock counts as double. Whoever has the majority in that company earns extra money. Ties earn a lesser amount.
• Sell, sell, SELL!: All players now sell all their shares back to the bank at the final value shown on the game board.

Players will now only be left with money which should now be counted up.

Values are tallied, highest amount wins.

Overall
Stockpile's theme fits its game fantastically, luckily, it's a theme that seems to translate well to gameplay - I guess that says something about real-life stock trading!
Players will find themselves trying to buy low and sell high - and trying to out do each other with a little bit of 'insider knowledge'.

Mechanically, Stockpile is relatively straightforward and uncomplicated. It does that neat trick of blending simple mechanics with quite deep gameplay, this is due to some extent on how players are actually playing each other and not the game!
There are two key ways players interact with each other.
​
Firstly and most obviously is the auctioning element which always brings a lot of factors to think about: How should I bid for something? Can I run up someone else's bid? Etc
The clever twist here is adding the rules for creating the stockpiles especially since half the cards are always played face-down. It can be used to give someone a nasty surprise or hide something you don't want opponents to have. Conversely, cards can be played face-up dissuade opponents from bidding for a specific stockpile or perhaps lure them into buying pile. This is all of course contextual and requires a player trying to keep an eye what stocks their opponents have been buying.

There's definitely a higher level of play that comes from trying to gauge an opponent's motives. Watching which companies shares they are playing cards into into which stack or bidding for. Or, especially during the selling phase, seeing someone ahead in the turn order dump their stock in a particular company might mean they know something that's going down and maybe you want to try and stymie them or perhaps get in on the action.

There's not much more to add really; Stockpile is an easy to learn game that provides meaningful decisions and lots of player interaction, all of which I found a lot of fun.
If auctioning mechanics are not your thing, Stockpile one to avoid but otherwise, it's definitely one to try.

20th June 2023


It's a Tuesday evening and we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for some gaming goodness.

Game of the night was Dice City: Create a city in this engine-building dice game! I don't about you but dice rolling is the best way to build any municipality!

Like most modern games, the component quality in Dice City is good and there's nothing bad here. While the cards are average, the boards and tokens feel sturdy, the tokens in particular are pleasantly chunky and tactile.
I would've preferred wooden dice to the plastic ones provided but they are good quality, having well rounded corners and deep pips.

There's a definitely a bit of a fantasy theme to the slightly cartoony and cheerful art style found in Dice City. It's colourful and eye-catching with a good variety to the art too, illustrations on both the large player boards and cards doing a good job of depicting their subject material with detail but without cluttering up the components. Even the art used on the resource tokens looks easy to see and detailed.
All the this lends the game a vibrant and bright presence on the table.

All the iconography in Dice City is easy to understand and is logical. Players should not have any trouble understanding anything here.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: To create the central drafting area, sort all the cards as follows.
  Base cards: First, sort all the lumber mill, mine, quarry and regular army cards into each of their 4 types and place the 4 decks face-up in a row.
  ​Location cards: Shuffle all the location cards into a face-down deck and deal 8 face-up alongside the base cards.
  Bandit cards: Sort the bandit cards into their 3 types and put a stack of each with cards in each stack as per player count.
  Trade ship cards: Sort the trade ships into their 3 types, then put out a stack of each type with cards in each stack as per player count.
• First player: Determine a starting player.
• Roll the dice: Every player should roll all 5 of their dice and place them on their player board accordingly.
  E.g., rolling a 5 on the yellow die means placing it on the 5 column in the yellow row and so on.

On to play
In Dice City each player will spend their turn resolving the 5 dice that have been placed on to their board. Essentially giving them 5 actions; this will give them options to gain resources and then buy cards or trade ships and launch attacks as per the dice results etc.
Dice City uses a typical player order with the active player fully resolving all their dice before play proceeds to the player on their left.
The active player's turn has several phases and goes as follows.

• Dice phase: The active player resolves the dice on their player board one at a time in the order they chose. A die is resolved by removing it from the board, then the active player can perform one of the following actions to resolve that die.
  Use space: Probably the most common action in the game. Once a die is removed from a space, the action on that space may be used. This can provide them gain or trade resources or allow them to generate army strength or gain VPs etc.
  Move die: this allows the active player to move a die elsewhere on their board.
  Reactivate space: Certain events can deactivate a space on a player board (More on this below.) and the active player can use the die removal to reactivate a deactivated space.
  Discard cards: Once per turn the active player may discard any 4 of the 8 location cards and draw new ones to replace them.
  Pass: Also once per turn the active player may pass an action to gain a pass token. Why is that useful? Glad you asked.
  • Additional actions: During the dice phase, pass tokens can be spent to gain extra actions. 2 pass tokens must be spent to gain an extra action, although this can be done multiple times in a single turn. The actions are as follows.
    Gain resource: The active player can gain the resource of their choice.
    Increase army strength: The active player may increase their army strength by +1.
    Force re-rolls: This bonus action forces all other players to reroll one of their dice!
• Attack phase: The active player may have generated army strength during the previous phase and it can now be used during this phase to 'attack'.
  To make an attack, the active player must have an army strength equal or higher than their target's defence value (In which case they can attack!). Furthermore, if the active player's army strength is high enough, it can be split among multiple target to attack them all.
  Army strength does not carry over from round to round and any unspent strength is lost at the end of the active player's turn.
  It should be noted that if a card doesn't have any defence value, it cannot be attacked.
  There are 3 types of attack that can be made.
  Bandit cards: Successfully attacking a bandit card allows the active player to claim it, adding its VPs to the player's total at the game end.
  Resources: The active player may target another player's resources (Which that player must have kept between their turns.), a successful attack will allow the active player to steal 1 or more of them depending on the army strength allocated to those attacks.
  Location: The active player may attack a location belonging to another player. A successful attack on a location will 'deactivate' it, consequently a deactivation token is placed on that location which now cannot be used until the token is removed.
• Building and trading phase: Now the active player can spend resources they have acquired. Unlike army strength, 1 of each of the 3 types of resource can be kept between turns.
  Build locations: The active player may build as many new locations as they can afford. However, when a new location is built, it will cover the current location which will be discarded.
  Trade ship card: Alternatively, resources can be spent to acquire a trade ship card.
• End of turn: Once the building and trading phase has finished, the active player's turn is over.
  Army strength: This reverts to 0.
  Resources: the active player can keep 1 of each resource.
  Pass tokens: Any number of pass tokens may be kept between turns.
  Roll dice: The active player rolls their 5 dice and places them as required on their player board in preparation for their next turn.
  Next player: Play now progresses to the player on the active player's left.

Endgame
​Play continues until one of the following criteria is met.

• All bandit cards have been acquired.
• At least 2 stacks of trade ship cards have been acquired.
• The location deck is empty.
• Optionally: If at least 2 rows of a player's player board has been covered with location cards and none of them contain a deactivation token, then that player may choose to trigger the game end.

Regardless of how game end is triggered, play progresses until all players have had equal turns.
Player now calculate their VPs which can come from the following sources.

• VP tokens.
• Location cards.
• Bandit cards.
• Trade ship cards.

​
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
​Dice City is not the first game to use dice-activations in a engine-building game with a city creation theme and while how the dice work on the board is an unusual mechanic, players will be familiar with a lot of the other concepts presented here.

They will need to adapt to both what their dice results give them to work with and what is available to draft from the location cards. Luckily players have some agency with the results in the form of dice-manipulation which can help but generally, they'll looking for ways to increase the efficiency of their player board and unlike a lot of game of this type, Dice City begins will a fully fleshed out beginner engine. Every die roll will always produce a result of some sort, so players will looking to increase the effectiveness of their results.
Ultimately, players will be looking to do things quicker than their opponents.

Something that Dice City does well is provide 2 clear avenues to accruing VPs - resources that can be used to improve a player's city or to buy trade ship cards, while army strength can be employed to defeat bandit cards or hinder other players' cities.
This adds an element of direct interaction - unusual for a game in this style with the ability to steal opponents' resources and deactivate their locations - especially locations with dice on them!
There's also a higher level of play where players can look at what's effective on an opponents board and target those spaces, even if they don't currently contain a die.
Additionally, a further element of player interaction are pass tokens which can be spent to make opponents re-roll dice.

Mechanically, Dice City is pretty straightforward with reasonably light rules that also generally provides players with meaningful decisions to make, both resources and army strength can have multiple uses and will give players options to think about.

I found Dice City to be an OK game and I hate saying a game is OK because it's a bit of a cop-out when trying to discuss games but that's exactly what Dice City is - OK.
Other than the possible direct interaction between players it doesn't do anything particularly different or special or new.
However, having said all of that, it also doesn't do anything badly and is a game that plays well enough to be engaging that I can't fault. Ultimately, while I found the game's presentation to be good, Dice City doesn't really standout for me.

If player interaction is something your big on or find important, Dice City has it and is a worth a look if you want a dice-driven city building game.
Conversely, some people don't like the confrontational element the direct interaction adds to the game. So 

I will happily play Dice City if someone else chooses it but it wouldn't be my first choice.

15th June 2023

Thursday night gaming in Aldershot continues with Formula Dé Mini.
Race around famous F1 tracks in this cut-down version of a classic racing game.

As the name might suggest, Formula Dé Mini is a smaller iteration of classic racing game Formula Dé which is itself re-iterated by Formula D.

I'm not going to do the usual blog for Formula Dé Mini because of it's similarities to Formula D. Instead I'll just list how it differs.

• Track: The tracks in Formula Dé Mini are smaller, not only in physical size but also in scope. The Formula Dé Mini tracks only have 1-stop corners and the track is only 2 lanes wide.

Component quality in Formula Dé Mini is comparable to the original Formula Dé. The boards are well made as are the tiles, cars, tokens and dice.
Using plastic gold discs for life points seems a little strange to me but they're as good as anything else for tokens.

The board features the same fantastic and detailed art that was found on the boards from Formula Dé .

​There's a little bit of iconography on the board but that's about it. Since Formula Dé ​Mini lacks the 6 types of resource from Formula Dé , all the icons and symbols related to those are gone, making this game easier to understand.

How's it play?
Formula Dé Mini retains most of the mechanics from the other games, playing almost identically: Read the Formula D blog for an overview of how it all works.
 
Formula Dé Mini broadly only differs in 2 ways, although many of the optional rules have been removed.

Firstly; the 6th gear is missing which makes sense considering the Formula Dé ​Mini tracks are somewhat smaller and it isn't really needed. It also removes one of the riskier  (And longest to count!) gear dice from the game, making the game slightly less complex.

Secondly, all of the types of resources (Gearbox, brakes, fuel etc.) have been removed and replaced with a single universal resource - the aforementioned life points.
Each car in Formula Dé Mini is given 16 life points at the game start.
Overshoot a corner? Spend life points instead of tyres.
Need to skip a gear? Spend life points.
Collide with another car or take engine damage? Spend life points and so on. you get the idea.
The game becomes notably easier and quicker to manage with a single resource.

Removed rules include those for weather conditions tyres as well for custom cars.

Finally, it's definitely worth mentioning that Formula Dé Mini is completely compatible with both other previous iterations of the game. That means all of the previously published tracks can be used with the Formula Dé Mini dashboards and components. Additionally, if you have the original Formula Dé core game, then the 6th gear dice can optionally also be used in Formula Dé ​Mini with those tracks.
​Excellent!

Overall
It seems obvious that the goal of Formula Dé Mini was to create an iteration of the original that was both easier to learn and faster to play and I think it succeeds at both.

Formula Dé Mini is somewhat easier to learn and play and is also a lot more forgiving in that regard.
The occasional mistake like having a car overshooting a corner by a lot of spaces might well cripple or eliminate that car in the full versions of the game but here, it would instead just cost more life points - although if a car loses all it's life points, it will still be eliminated.
The removal of the multi-stop corners from tracks that come with the game removes one of the more finicky aspects of the rules. This means the remaining rules are reasonably straightforward to learn and several of them are situational and might not even occur during the game.

Is Formula Dé Mini quicker to play? Yes, especially when using the supplied smaller tracks but even when using the 'full-sized' tracks play will a little faster. Reducing the resource management from 6 to 1 resource makes decisions quicker.
Even so, players will be faced with similar decisions to the full games. I'm impressed with how Formula Dé Mini manages to retain the 'feel' of the full sized games.
It's always fundamentally been a game about how much players are willing to push their cars through the corners and how much risk they're willing to take to do so, this hasn't changed. Sure, Formula Dé Mini may take the edge of that risk but it's still always there.

So how does Formula Dé Mini stack compared to the full versions of the game? The answer is; pretty good actually.
When I heard there was a version of Formula Dé ​that removed all the resources, I was pretty sceptical and sort of assumed that it would overly simplify or 'infantilise' the game but that wasn't the case. What you have is genuinely a quicker easier version of the game to play.

On a intellectual level I feel Formula Dé/Formula D is the better, more satisfying game to play.
On visceral level though, I found Formula Dé Mini very enjoyable to play. Some of the more challenging elements are gone but it means you can now blast round the tracks safe in the knowledge that you have some more wiggle room to mitigate those bad dice rolls!
It's an arcade racing game compared to a sim!

If you're looking for a quicker version of the game to play - or a way to introduce Formula D to players, this will definitely do the job.

While Formula De Mini remains long out of print, the still available Formula D utilises these simplified rules in its beginner game.
Alternatively, if you've got the original Formula Dé ​, you can simply acquire a bunch of tokens and play it that way.

I generally wouldn't choose Formula Dé Mini over the other versions but it's still a great game.

11th June 2023

​Sunday evening is here again and that means some gaming goodness on Board Game Arena.
Line up those numerical cards in this abstract, lightweight and compact set-collecting card game!

Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally.

​What's in a game?

• Cards: Line-it uses 2 types of cards.
  • Number cards: There are card numbered 1-100 in Line-it. Additionally they are further subdivided into to 4 colours/suits.
  • Bet cards: These grey, essentially monotone cards are labelled from +3 to +5. They are used as part of the game's push-you-luck betting mechanic.

How's it play?
Setup

• Jackpot tokens: Place the jackpot tokens in a row adjacent to the central playing area.
• ​Deck: Shuffle all the cards into face-down deck.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Line-it, players will be drafting cards then using them to create a row of cards (The titular line if you will) and this row must either ascend of descend numerically from left-to-right.
Once a line reaches a 'suitable' size, players can then choose score that line by 'completing' and adding it to their personal 'scoring stack' which represents their victory points (VPs).

A round in Line-it is played using a traditional turn order with the first player acting before play progresses to the player on their left and so on.

• Round start: Draw cards from the deck to form The market. The size of the market is equal to the number of players + 2.
• First Player: A round starts with the first player as the active player.
• Draft card: The active player must draft a card from the market, they can then perform 1 of 2 actions with it.
  • Add to line: This card can be added to the active player's line with the following requirements.
    1st card: Any card can be played as the 1st card in a line.
    Left-to-right: Every card that is played after the first must be placed to the right of the rightmost card, thus the line always goes from left-to-right.
    2nd card: The 2nd card added the line will determine whether the line ascends or descends numerically in value. If the 2nd card has a higher value than the 1st, the line with ascend, conversely, if is lower, the line will descend.
    3rd card onwards: All cards played to the line after the 2nd must continue the 'trend' of the line. Thus must be higher in value in a ascending line or lower in a descending line.
    Jackpot: If a player adds a 3rd card of a certain colour to their line, they immediately draft all cards of that colour that have been stacked adjacent to its corresponding jackpot token. More on how jackpots are created below.
    Bet cards: These do not count as number cards and are not affected by the placement rules above. Bet cards represent a push-your-luck element as players are essentially betting on how many cards they think they can play into their line after the bet card. Thus, the higher the bet card value, the more cards must be played to win the bet but also, the more VPs it's worth. Bet cards come into play when completing and scoring a line.
    Only 1 bet card can ever be placed in a line.
  • Add to hand: Alternatively, the drafted card can be added to the active player's hand.
    Players have a maximum hand size of 2.
  • Cannot play: If for any reason the active player cannot perform either of the 2 actions above, they must immediately 'complete' their line and score it. More on scoring below.
• Additional actions: As well as the actions, above, the active player has 2 further actions available to them which can be resolved at any time during their turn.
  • Play from hand: The active player may add a single card from their hand to their line, this must follow the usual placement rules.
  • Complete line: The active player may (Or may be forced to!) score a line by 'completing' it. This has 2 steps.
    • Bet card: If the active player has a bet card in their line, they must first check if they've won their 'bet'.
      Winning a bet: Every bet card has a value from +3 to +5. If the active player has played at least as many cards after the bet as it's value, they have won the bet! They take the bet token with corresponding value and add it to their scoring stack.
      Losing a bet: If the active has not played the required number of cards, they have lost the bet! They take the bet token with the corresponding value, flips it to the negative side and adds it to their scoring stack.
    • Score the line: The active player discards 3 cards from their line and adds the remaining cards to their scoring stack.
      This means if a line has 3 or less cards, it will score 0 when completed!
• End of turn: Once the active player has completed their action(s), play progresses to the player on their left.
• End of round: Once all players have taken their turns - the round is obviously over and the 2 following steps occur.
  Jackpots: The 2 remaining cards which were not drafted are placed adjacent to their pertinent jackpot tokens and will become available in later rounds for players to gain.
  New first player: The player to the left of the current first player becomes the first player for the next.
  Play will now progress with new cards being drawn to create a new market.

Endgame
The endgame is triggered when there are not enough cards to create a full market at the start of a round. Then the following occurs.
Firstly, any remaining cards from the deck are placed on to their corresponding jackpot tokens.
Then in turn order, each player gets the opportunity to play 1 card from their hand to their line (Increasing their score and potentially gaining a jackpot.).
Finally, all players must complete their current line.

Now players calculate their finishing scores. Each card in a scoring stack is worth 1 VP while bet tokens are worth their displayed values.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Line-it is an abstract drafting game that doesn't attempt to awkwardly shoehorn a tenuous theme on to itself and while I know plenty of players for whom theme is important, I myself have never found the lack of it an obstacle to enjoying a game.
In this regard, some people may be put off by Line-it's lack of theme but YMMV.

Rules-wise, Line-it is a straightforward, easily understood rules-light but luck-heavy game. Players have to draft a card and then choose whether to play it to their line or 'bank' it to play later.
Players will initially look to draft a very low or high card to start a line, giving them the most leeway to create longer lines and players will want to create long lines.
The game's action economy dictates that (Ignoring jackpots.) completing a line after 6 drafts will score 3VPs - which is 0.5VPs per action but completing a line with just 4 cards would score 1VPs and that works out to be only 0.25 per action.
Worse of all, having to complete a line of 3 or less cards would give 0VPs for per action. Something players will definitely want to avoid.

Because of the inherent luck present in Line-it, at times players will have to deal with much less than optimal choices while drafting cards - doubly so when a player is going later in the round and their choices lessen even more.

Of course jackpots throw something different into the mix, sometimes justifying completing a line 'early' to gain those bonus cards. E.G., discarding a line of 3 yellows to gain a yellow jackpot card would earn 1VP which works to be .33VP per action. Having said that, getting 3 cards of the same colour will not be particularly quick, especially if other players can get there quicker.

Bet cards also provide a extra element to think about. Although their usefulness will vary: They can be a good source of VPs in the early game or early in a player's line but conversely be very negative in the late game or of if added later in a players line.
Players will need to think carefully when considering the risk of adding a bet card to their line.

The other element for players to consider is placing a card into their hand. Being able to bank a card can be vital to success. There's a bit of higher level of play in Line-it that can come from storing and playing a card of a certain colour or value can prove advantageous at the right time and sometimes.
Additionally, a player being able to put a card into their hand simply to just to avoid playing it can also be useful.
Wisely, the game limits player hands to 2, otherwise it would be too useful an action.

So while Line-it does give players meaningful decisions to make, the can also be very luck dependant and sometimes players will be faced with nothing but less than optimal choices, particularly when they go later in the turn order and their options dwindle.
The scoring also felt somewhat frustrating, having to discard 3 cards before scoring feels wrong. I know why that mechanic exists - it prevents players scoring short lines of 2 cards or so which is not something you want in a game about creating numerically linear lines of card. Even so, it felt counterintuitive and even unfair!

Another element I found counterintuitive was when I would habitually think, 'I'm going first next round, so I'll draft one of those cards not taken this round' only to see them discarded into their jackpot stacks.
I know this is my fault but again, it felt frustrating and only served to highlight the game's randomness.

I'm probably overthinking it though. Line-it is an accessible game that will probably play quite well with non-gamers. It's also a quick filler game that could be used to begin or end a long gaming session and not something to pour huge amounts of though into.
​If you like a lot of luck in your filler games, Line-it could be for you.
For me though, it didn't have quite enough to engage me. I applaud a game for it's simplicity and accessibility but having said that, I did find Line-it just a bit too simple and random for my liking. 

Component quality is good throughout and there's nothing bad to write about.
The cards are of the standard expected from a modern game and understandably smaller than usual which keeps the game's footprint from getting too large. The frames and coins are all made of sturdy card and also to the standard that is expected from a modern game.
While made mostly of card, the score trackers are both a nice and useful addition, doing away with the need to use tokens to track what is a relatively high scoring game.

The art direction in Village Rails is also for the most part good. It has a watercolour aesthetic that depicts the steam trains of old and bird's eye views of the games 5 different landscapes of yesteryear with nice little touches such as horses in pastures and buildings or patches of garden in villages.
Unfortunately, the art does fall down a bit when depicting the differences between the lake and forest terrain types which should be obviously different but somehow, with a murky mixture of blue-green palettes can be conflated with each other. This brings me to the game's other problem with presentation; iconography.

Village Rails has icons for the 5 different types of 'feature' which can be found on the train lines. It also has icons for the game's 5 different types of landscape but these symbols are tiny and can tricky to spot! Worse still, they can be lost against the noise of a landscape with a dark background. This is compounded by the fact that the cards are small.
It's not a gamebreaker but it is a oversight that can add some unnecessary fiddliness to proceedings.

Otherwise the iconography is pretty straightforward, easily understood and shouldn't prove too complicated.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Sort the cards into their 2 types.
  • Railway cards: Ensure that the railway cards all on the same side and shuffle them into a deck with the trip side face-up. 
    Track market: Deal 7 cards from the deck, flipping them so the track side is face-up and  in a row heading away from the railway deck
    Trip market: Then deal 4 cards with the trip side face-up, also placed in a row heading away from the railway deck and adjacent to the track market row
  • Terminus cards: Shuffle the terminus cards into a face-down deck. Deal 3 to each player.
• Money: Give each player their starting money.
• Frames: Give each player the pieces of a frame which they should piece together.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Village Rails, players will be drafting track cards to create train lines within their frame in a 3x4 grid to score VPs, they can also draft trip cards to make those train lines earn even more VPs. Finally, they will be using terminus cards to earn money.
Village rails plays over exactly 12 rounds and uses a typical turn order with the active player taking their actions before play progresses to the player on their left.

In their turn, the active play performs the following actions.

• Drafting: When drafting, the following 2 draft-actions may be performed in any order the active player chooses.
  • Draft track card: The active player must draft a track card. They can take any of the 7 available cards but only the one furthest away from the railway deck is free. If the active player wants to take a card further along the 'line', they must place £1 on each track card they skip.
    When gaining a track card, the player also gains any coins on it.
    Place track card: The track card must be placed be inside the players frame, either adjacent to the inside edge of the frame or orthogonally adjacent to another track card.
    Additionally, track cards can only be placed in the landscape orientation, although they can be rotated 180'. Because of how the tracks are laid out, they will invariably lead the train lines downwards and/or rightwards, eventually going outside of the 3x4 grid. When this happens, that track line is 'completed'. Depending on card placement, up to 2 lines can be completed at a time.
    Completing train lines: If a player completes 2 lines at the same time, they can choose the order in which they are resolved.
    Resolving a line involves calculating the VPs it scores: There are numerous ways this can happen dependant on the features on the line.
    VPs might come from a number of the same landscape type, or a variety of different terrains that the line passes though.
    VPs may come from symbols on the line.
    Some features straight up score VPs.
    VPs are then added to the players score tracker.
    Only 'sidings' are not immediately scored.
    Completed trip cards: If a completed train line also has any attached trip cards (See below.), then they are scored according to their objectives and added to the score tracker.
    Once scored, completed trips cards are discarded to the bottom of the railway deck and a terminus card is played - see below for more info on terminus cards.
    Replace card: Once a card has been taken, the space left is filled by sliding cards away from the deck to fill it, then a new card is drawn and placed closest to the deck.
  • Draft trip card: The active player may choose to draft 1 of the 4 available trip cards. Unlike track cards, this is never free! First they must pay £3 to the bank, then they can take a trip card.
    The trip card furthest away from the deck has no additional cost but if the active player wants a trip card closer to the deck, as with the track market, they must place £1 on each trip card they skip.
    And as with track cards, the player gains any coins on a trip card they acquire.
    Place trip card: Trip cards are placed outside the frame and adjacent to one of the 7 starting train lines - provided it has not already been completed. A trip card cannot be placed on a completed line nor would it earn any VPs for it, so it's a good idea to place trip cards before track cards.
    Up to 2 trip cards can be placed at the start of a train line.
    ​Replace card: Once a card has been taken, the space left is filled by sliding cards away from the deck to fill it, then a new card is drawn and placed closest to the deck.
• ​Terminus cards: Once any train lines have been completed and any associated trips cards have been resolved, the player must place a terminus card outside the frame where the completed train line started (Essentially replacing any trip cards that might have been there.).
  Depending on the objectives on the terminus card, it can score the player £3-£10.
  When a terminus card is placed, the active player immediately draws a new one to replace it. Players should always have 3 terminus cards to choose from.
• Next player: The player to the left of the active player now becomes the active player.

​Endgame
Once all players have taken exactly 12 turns, the game is over.
Each players now calculates VPs earned from sidings and adds it to their score tracker.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Thematically, Village Rails, especially with its artwork, harks back to an age of steam before the existence of personal transport when trains represented an opportunity to go on holiday to the coast or sightsee through the countryside. 

Mechanically, Village Rails is on recognisable ground. 
It's drafting and placement rules, will be familiar to many players, as will the coin-and-conveyor belt mechanic for replacing cards.
The set-collecting, point soring mechanics will also be familiar. Sometimes players will want a set of the same landscape, or alternatively they'll want a variety of different ones on their line and so forth.

Where Village Rails does differentiate itself is in the use of trip cards to add an extra layer of scoring opportunities to the proceedings. Players will now be looking to combo trip cards off the routes they are creating. E.g., a player may be creating a route with only a type of terrain and would look for a trip card that complements that objective.
The game has a fairly wide variety of trips cards, including trip cards that score off of other trip cards.
Interestingly, there are some trip cards that work well on short train lines. It's possible to create a train line with only 1 card that immediately goes out of the playing area and a trip card that requires only 1 type of terrain would score easily off of that line.

Additionally, in the early game, Village Rails also has quite a harsh cash economy. Money is very useful for getting cards that a player needs but is in quite short supply at the start and players can soon run out of cash - and there's only 2 ways to get more - playing terminus cards after completing lines or drafting cards with coins on them.
This presents an interesting dynamic to players: I imagine most players will instinctively want to create the longest most elaborate trains lines to increase their scoring opportunities. Sometimes though, it can be good to complete a line quickly to get an injection of funds which can prove beneficial in the late game. This adds a nice little balancing act to the game, creating short and long term needs.

All of this provides players with more meaningful decisions to make and this is especially true since not only do players only have 12 turns until their playing area is filled. There will only ever be 7 train lines available to be completed, Players will need to optimise the placing of track cards

I don't usually refer to other games when blogging about the current game but it's worth mentioning that Village Rails is a re-iteration of its predecessor Village Green's 3x4 card grid mechanic which Village Rails definitely improves upon.
Where in Village Green a mistake meant leaving a gap in the grid, in Village Rails it means playing a card that scores less optimally. Mechanically the result may be identical but it makes Village Rails feels a little more forgiving, less frustrating and ultimately makes for a better game.

I found Village Rails to be an enjoyable game of its type that squeezes quite a lot into a small package, providing players with interesting options and meaningful decisions to make, albeit with a slightly flawed presentation.
​If you like route-building games with some drafting elements and it's train travel theme, then its one to try.
Finally; I would definitely recommend Village Rails over Village Green, there's nothing  wrong with Village Green but this is the superior game.