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.

6th August 2023

It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming fun.

Time to set things up in Setup, an abstract tile-laying, set-collecting game

Caveat: We  have only ever played this game digitally.

​What's in a game?
Board: Setup features a board within an almost Octagonal shape and which contains 12 interconnected square spaces. At each of the 4 orthogonal edges of the board are 2 spaces which are both 'coloured' in 1 of the 4 player colours. Thus, each player 'controls' the 2 spaces in their player colour.

• Scoring track: Running around the board's perimeter is a scoring track that has 3 different 'finishing' spaces dependant on player count.

Card tiles: Setup makes use of tiles which are a bit like cards; hence the name!
Unlike a normal deck of cards, there's an extra suit here - Star.
Additionally, each suit goes from 1-10 with no 'picture' tiles. With one of each tile, there's a total of 50 tiles.

Bag: In the physical game, there's a bag that comes with the game.

Meeples: There's one each of these in the player colours
​Tile racks: Also only in the physical version are tile racks again in all player colours which players use to hold and hide their hand of card tiles.
​
Setup is a pretty abstract game and there's no conventional artwork to speak of. It's a fairly colourful though with cheerfully ​bright compnents.

There's also little to be said about the iconography - if you understand a deck of cards, you'll understand this. Nothing here would prove a problem to understand.

How's it play?
Setup
Time for the setup for Setup!
Card tiles: Put all the card tiles into the bag and give it a good shake!
Board: Put the board into the central playing area, blindly draw 4 cards tiles and place them into the 4 central most spaces on the board.
Common hand: Draw another 4 tiles and place them face-up in a row adjacent to the board. This is the common tiles, more on that later.
Players: Each player should select a colour from one of the board edges (Ideally the edge closest to the them.) and take the meeple and tile rack in the matching colour.

• Meeple: Place the meeple on the starting space on the scoring track.
• Tiles: Each player should blindly draw 4 tiles and keep them hidden on their tile rack.

First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
Setup is essentially a set collecting game, although technically, player don't collect sets just score them. This is done by playing tiles to create sets which can be 2-of-a-kind, 3-of-a-kind etc or runs, e.g., 3-4-5-6 and so on.
Setup uses a traditional turn order with the active player resolving their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.
​During their turn, the active player will have 1 of 2 basic options open to them.

Play tiles: The active player may play any number of tiles from their hand and also from the common hand on to the board provided the tiles played create at least 1 set.
When placing tiles on the board, the active player may place one on top of an existing tile if they so wish.

• Sets: A set consists of at least 2 connected tiles (Tiles can be connected in potentially 8 directions.) and sets can include tiles that are already on the board.
  There are 2 types of set. 
  Runs: A run consists of numerical sequence of connected card tiles with the same suit. Thus, 2-of-clubs, 3-of-clubs and 4-of-clubs would be a set of 3 tiles.
  Same number: 2 or more tiles of the same numerical value but different suits can be a set. The 7-of-diamonds, 7-of-hearts and 7-of-spades would be a set of 3.
• Scoring: Once the card tiles have been placed, scoring can occur. 1 victory point (VP) is scored for each tile in the set, this is regardless of who played it.
  E.g., if a previous player had placed 2 ones and the active player connects another one, then the active player would score all 3 ones!
  Additional sets: It is possible (and probably likely) to create more than 1 set when placing card tiles and in this case, all sets are scored! However, a card tile can only ever be scored once per round regardless of how many sets it is a part of.
  Bonus points: If the active player creates a set that uses a card tile in any spaces controlled by other players, then those other players score 1VP per space they control that was used.
  Advance meeple: Players now advance their meeple by 1 space on the score tracker per VP earned.
• Refresh hands: The active player draws card tiles from the bag to take their hand size back up to 4. The same is done for the common hand.

Exchange tiles: The other main action the active player can choose is to swap out any of their current card tiles instead of placing. Players will generally only do this if they can't play any tiles but may also do it if they are looking to create an opportunity to make a bigger set later.
They remove any number of tiles from their hand and draw replacements from the bag. their discarded tiles are returned to the bag.
End of turn: Once the active player has completed their action, play then progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
Whichever player crosses the finishing line on the score tracker first, wins!
Depending on the player count, the finishing line could be 23-31 spaces along the tracker.

2v2 game: I should note add there is a 2v2 team variant of the game that plays almost identically if a team based game interests you.

Overall
As far as theme goes, Setup is clearly an abstract game and doesn't have or need a theme.

Setup is pretty straightforward and it's core mechanic will be familiar to many players; collecting sets of matched values or numerical runs - it's a mechanic that's often been employed.
Players will looking to both play their own tiles with maximum efficiency and also exploit card tiles played by their opponents but without giving them bonus points if possible.
It will mean players will need to keep an eye out on the potential to score multiple sets as a time.
Being able to play a card tile on top of another tile adds a interesting dynamic as it can change things up a bit.
Finally, players may also want to consider exchanging tiles or not. It may be possible to create bigger sets by holding off but then there's also the risk of losing access to useful tiles on the board if they get covered.
Otherwise I think that's pretty much it for mechanics and strategy

This is a lightweight game that has a quick-ish play time and could be a good introductory crossover game or one for younger players except for the scoring.
Yes, tiles which are played can be scored multiple times as part of multiple sets and also trigger bonus scoring but also can only be scored once per turn.
It's not particularly demanding to track all of this but it's a just little fiddly for what the game delivers.

While the mechanics employed are tried and tested and provides meaningful decisions to make, it's also quite unremarkable with bare bones gameplay. There's nothing wrong here but I just can't find a reason to recommend it other than to someone that might want a basic set collecting game if they didn't already got one.

4th August 2023

It's a Friday night and we're round Simon's which means it's time to welcome in the weekend with some gaming goodness.

Load up the Winchester, strap on the peacemaker and head out to the west: Travel over prairies and along dusty long-dried gulches, see the monolithic sights at Monument Valley and encounter zombie hordes in.... Zombicide: Undead or Alive!

A while back I played a few games of vanilla Zombicide, a cooperative survival game of dispatching zombies while completing objectives.
Zombicide: Undead or Alive takes that game and moves the setting into the wild west.

What's in a game?

Tile boards: There are 9 of these large tiles, they're double-sided and placed out together to create the game's playing area. Each side depicts a bird's eye view of one of various old western buildings on a street. The street on each tile is broken down in 'zones' while interiors of said buildings are also displayed with different rooms also being broken down into 'zones'. 
​Train tiles: There are 3 of the oblong tiles. They're also double-sided and one side shows a railway track while the other show a train on the track.

Player board: Each player gets one of these enormous plastic player 'dashboards' with a faux wood finish and they about A5 in size!
Each dashboard has indented spaces and spots to place tiles, character cards, equipment cards as well as tokens. There's even 3 grooves along the top to hold 'backpack' cards upright.

• Adrenaline track: Running along the bottom is a numbered and colour coded 'adrenaline' track that goes from blue to red for when things go from cool to hot! It is used to track a character's adrenaline numerically and 'danger level' according to colour.

Character cards: Each of the game's named 14 playable 'survivors' has their own card with accompanying illustration.

• Class: The card lists which of the 4 'classes' the character belongs to and thus which 'class ability' is available to them. It has a space to place a specific weapon.
  
• Special actions: There's also a track for unlockable special moves (which is colour coded and linked to their adrenaline bar on the dashboard.)
  
• Hit points: Finally, there's a hit point (HP) tracker.

Cards: There's essentially 2 types of mini-sized which cards are used in Zombicide: Undead or Alive.

• ​Equipment cards: This type is broken down into several further different types, each with their own deck.
  Regardless of this, cards will tend to share a lot of common elements.
  E.g., no matter where a weapon card comes from, it will always show whether it's a melee or ranged weapon - and if so, its associated range along with the type of ammo its uses, number of dice rolled when attacking with it, the target number the roll needs to hit and how much damage it does. Finally it shows how much noise the weapon produces.
  Starting weapons: These are the beginning weapons that characters start the game with.
  Classic equipment: These cards can be acquired during the game and will include a fair variety of items to use as well as weapons.
  Bounty weapons: The weapons found in this deck are particularly effective.

Tokens: Lots of card tokens are used in the game.

• Bang/BOOM! token: This double-sided token is used to represent the last sound a player has made and that which zombies might hear. The BOOM! side is always louder than the bang!
• Exit token: Players always need an exit strategy and this card token is good for that!
• Objective tokens: These are styled to look like crates and come in 3 types all of which are double sided. There are 7 red tokens and 1 green and 1 blue and they can be used in various ways as required by the selected mission.

There's an impressive number of components to Zombicide: Undead or alive and they're all of a uniformly good quality. Cards, board, tokens, they're all good but the standouts are the 3d components and the dice.
The models obviously look good but also, the player dashboard with along with dynamite trackers are a nice touch and they all feel suitably sturdy.
The dice are wooden, nicely rounded and the card themed numbering on them are a nice touch.

A colourful and slightly cartoony style is used across the character and zombie cards, it's a humorous style that suits the game's tone well. The main board tiles seem a bit more subdued in comparison and they are perhaps a bit too busy for my liking but it's not detrimental to the game.
The zombie models, being grey risk sort of merging into one dull greyish blob when on the board but wisely, the runners have been constructed in a distinctly different shade of grey that makes them easily spotted against their undead compatriots while the fatties look distinctly different. The abomination is of course, red.

There's quite a lot that goes on during Zombicide: Undead or Alive, fortunately, much of the game's information is provided via text descriptions.
That's not to say there isn't a fair amount of iconography - because there is but it won't be overwhelming to seasoned gamers or players of previous versions of Zombicide; although this version has some differences to the vanilla game, in this case, adding character classes. More novice players will probably find themselves referring to the rulebook early on in the game.
It all shows that attention and care have been put into the components and presentation.

How's it play?
​Setup

• Mission: First decide which mission will be used for the game. It will list how to set up the tile boards and train tiles. It will also determine where spawn points, objectives etc will be placed on the boards.
  Finally, the chosen mission may restrict which characters may be used.
• ​Players: Generally, the game expects 6 characters to be used regardless of the player count. With a lower player count, some people may well be playing more than one character.
  Character: First give each player a character card and it's matching miniature. Also give them the 3d trackers in their colour.
  Dashboard: Give each player a dashboard. They should place their character card onto the allotted space on the dashboard and trackers on their allotted starting positions on the special moves and HP trackers.
  ​Ensure the adrenaline tracker is placed at '0'.

• Starting spots: Character miniatures should be placed on their starting place as per the chosen mission.
• Bang token: Place the bang token on the playing area as per the mission description.
• Cards: Take all the remaining (Non starting cards.) and sort them by type. Shuffle each pile into a face-down deck.
• ​​First player: Determine a starting player.

Onto play
Zombicide: Undead or Alive is a cooperative game in which the players will be attempting to complete an objective and escape the board before becoming zombie fodder!
A round takes place over 3 phases and players will take their turns using an action point system during the 'player phase', while the 'board' will run the 'zombie phase' in which zombies will spawn and chase characters in an attempt to defeat them.
Player phase: During this phase the active player will act in turn order and will have 3 action points (AP) to perform 3 actions, which include the following.

• Move: The active player may spend 1AP to move their character orthogonally into an adjacent zone - this can be outside or indoors. If there is a door adjacent, then the character may enter or exit a building.
  Entering buildings: Some buildings contain 'corpse piles' and the first time any character enters a building with a corpse pile, a corpse pile spawn tile should be placed on it.
  Zombies: Typically, the walking dead complicate things! If a character exits a zone which contains 1 or more zombies, then they pay 1 extra AP per zombie to exit that zone! This means if a character is in a zone with a lot of zombies, they will potentially be stuck there.
  Additionally, if a character has an ability that allows them to move more than 1 zone per AP and they enter a zone with zombies, that particular move action immediately ends.
• Search: If a character is indoors and there are no zombies in their current zone, the player can spend 1AP to search. This allows them to draw a card from the classic equipment deck and add it to their dashboard, they may then 'reorganise' their inventory (More on this below.)
  Unless a character has the 'Townsfolk' class, they can only perform 1 search per round regardless of AP they have.
• Reorganise/trade: The active player may spend an AP to shift equipment cards around their dashboard. A character may also freely discard a card.
  As part of this action, the active player may also trade with 1 other player sharing their zone. This allows the 2 characters to freely exchange cards in any way they see fit. It also allows the inactive character who is part of the trade to reorganise as well.
• Combat: Now we get to the meat (SIC) of the game! Combat is broken down into 2 types; melee and ranged.
  • Melee: A character may attack any zombie who is in the same zone as them, if there are more than 1 zombie, then the character can choose which zombie to target.
    This is done by rolling the dice as determined by whatever melee weapon they are using and if successful, will deal damage.
  • Ranged: Ranged attacks are somewhat more complex, they roll dice in similar fashion, but there are more factors to take into account.
    Line of sight: First, the character must be able to draw a line of sight to their target. Generally, any target outside can easily be seen, even at several zones away unless they're round a corner.
    However, a character can only see 1 zone into a building or out of it, furthermore, if the character is inside, they can only see into any interior zones if they are adjacent
    Range: Even if a character can see a zombie, it must still be within the scope of the ranged weapons range.
    Some weapons have a range of 0-1 which means a target can be hit up to 1 zone away or in the same zone as the character.
    Some weapons may have a range of 1-2, which means zombies 1 to 2 zones away can be it but zombies in the same zone as the character cannot!
    Target priority: Unlike melee (where when faced with multiple zombies in a single zone, the attacker can choose which to attack,) when a character uses a ranged weapon and there are multiple zombies of different types in the same zone, they must attack zombies as per the targeting priority.
    What does this mean?
    It means that certain types of zombie must be targeted before other types first, depending on what type of zombies are sharing the same zone.
    The priority is:
    Abominations/fatties first.
    If there are no abominations/fatties, then walkers must be targeted first.
    Finally, if there are no other types of zombie present, then runners can be targeted. Phew!
  • Damage: Walkers and runners can be destroyed by 1 point of damage and fatties need 2 points of damage to dispatch and abominations require 3 points to be defeated!
    Damage does not carryover from attack to attack. This means that unless a weapon does 2 damage, it cannot destroy a fattier and unless it does 3 damage, it cannot be used to defeat an abomination!
    This also has an added impact on ranged attacks. If a character is attacking a zone with multiple zombies which includes abominations or fatties with a weapon that only does 1 damage, then it will have no effect! They must target the abomination/fatty first but cannot do it any damage - sucks to be them!
    Noise: Guns are noisy and when used, the bang token is usually moved to the zone where the attacker fired from.
  • Adrenaline: Whenever a character defeats a zombie, their adrenaline goes up by 1 and if they manage to defeat an abomination it goes up by 5! Destroying spawn points can also push up adrenaline.
    When the tracker moves into a different colour it unlocks the linked special ability for that character.
    The first unlock is always 1 extra AP when yellow is reached. When it reaches orange, the player gets to pick 1 of the 2 orange abilities to unlock (Not both!) and when it reaches red, they get to pick from one of the 3 available unlocks.

• Take/activate: By spending an AP, the character may interact with an object in the same zone as them, typically this will be regarding a mission objective and will vary depending on that mission.
• Machine: If a character is in the same zone as a 'machine' such as the Gatling gun, or the wagon then APs can be spent to make use of them.
• Make noise: A character may spend an AP to make noise to distract/lure zombies, this means the bang token is moved to their zone unless it has been flipped to the BOOM! side, in which case, it does not move. A bang is never louder than a BOOM! and zombies cannot be lured away from a BOOM!!
• Do nothing: Finally, the player may pass, this ends their turn immediately, regardless of how many APs they may still possess.
• Next player: Once the active player has completed their turn, play progresses to the player on their left.
• End of phase: Once all players have completed their turn, the player phase is over.

Zombie phase: Play now moves on to the zombie phase in which zombies will move or attack character and then more zombies will spawn!

• Activation: Every zombie currently on the board must activate! Players can choose the order in which they do so. When activating, zombies will have 1 of 2 actions available.
  • Attack: If 1 or more zombies is in the same zone as characters, they will attack! When attacking, zombies always automatically hit and each zombie will do 1 point of damage which is dealt to the characters.
    If there is more than one character in that zone, the players may assign the damage between characters as they see fit.
  • Move: Any zombies not attacking must instead move and will move 1 zone.
    A zombie will move towards any character the they see, prioritising a character in the same zone as the noise token. Otherwise they will move towards the largest group of characters they can see.
    If a zombie cannot see any characters, they will move toward the noise token.
    Distance: A zombie will always the shortest route to their destination. In the case of multiple routes of equal distance, players can choose which route the zombie takes. If a mob of zombies is moving along multiple routes, then they should be split between the routes as evenly as possible.
  • Second activation: Once all zombies have resolved their activations, runners get a second activation! This is basically a repeat of the above 2 actions, although a runner may change action.
    E.g., if a runner used it's first activation to move into the same zone as a character, it will use it's second activation to attack. Or if it moved towards the noise token with it's first move and it now sees a character, it will change direction towards that character.
    This also means if it starts the zombie phase in the same zone as a characters, it will attack twice!
• Spawn: In this part of the phase, more zombies will spawn.
  • Danger level: First determine danger level, there are 4 levels and they correspond to the colours on player adrenaline tracks. The danger level will match the colour of the character who is furthest along their adrenaline track.
    I.e., if a character is in the orange part of their adrenaline track and they are furthest along, then the danger level will be orange.
  • Draw cards: Then, beginning with the starting spawn point, draw a zombie card for each active spawn point.
    Generally, the card drawn will be a zombie card. It will list the type of zombie and how many of that type will spawn - it will be colour coded to the danger level. Thus the higher the danger level, the more will spawn.
    Abomination spawn: The abomination its own special rules that occur when its spawn card is drawn.
    Extra activation: Some cards will be activation cards. It means instead of spawning more zombies, those on the board get an extra activation - which means they can move or attack again. This can be bad news!
  • No supply of miniatures: If there are not enough miniatures to put on to the playing area when a spawn card is drawn, then the abomination gets an extra activation.

End of round phase: Once all spawn tokens have been resolved, the game goes to the final phase and the following occurs.

• Bang/BOOM! token: If the BOOM! side of this token is showing, flip it back to the bang side. It's already on the bang side, then move to the zone which contains the largest number of characters.
• New first player: The first player token should be moved to the player to the left of the current first player.
• Next round: A new round starting with another player phase begins

Additional rules: The game also has rules for the Gatling gun, wagon, train and so on. There are also specific rules on how objective tokens are used from mission to mission and there's too many to list here.
If you really want to know, feel free to read the rulebook online, it's only 50 pages long.

​Endgame
There are a couple of other lose conditions that can make the game end badly for the players and which are:
If any time there are 7 active spawn points, then the players lose.
If any character has their HP reduced to 0, then the players lose.

Otherwise play progresses until the chosen mission's win or lose criteria are met in which case the players collectively either win or lose.

Overall
​With it's old western art style and equally styled components, the theme fits well within the frame of Zombicide. Although, it's tricky to think of a setting that wouldn't fit.
The character classes feel right for the theme and work well to differentiate between the characters.

There's quite a lot going on in the game but some of that is down to options and choices available to players. Mechanically, Zombicide: Undead or Alive isn't too complex and wisely, zombies actions are streamlined, although there may well be a lot of zombies to shuffle around the playing area.
Seasoned players won't really find anything tricky to learn.

The only quibble I have with the rules is the targeting priority when performing ranged attacks.
I know why it's there; to stop players targeting runners and using their superior movement to keep out range of all the other types of zombie.
Generally, I consider the runners the most dangerous type of zombie, they can reach characters quicker and attack more often. Tactically, players would likely target runners first if it wasn't for the priority targeting, at least that's what I'd probably do.
Understandable from a game-balance perspective but nonetheless, frustrating.

Because the game is so mission driven, it's hard to give a comprehensive overview of what players will face but in game like this but gameplay-wise, the game has that classic cooperative game structure of slowly, over turns threatening to overwhelm players who will be faced with balancing the need to complete objectives with the need to reduce the burgeoning zombie horde.
It's a fairly common predicament in cooperatives games but it serves this game well by putting the players in situations where they have to make meaningful decisions. Luck also plays a part in games like this and players will need to adapt to manage bad luck - especially if there's a couple of bad draws from the zombie deck.

While the game looks great, particularly so when there's 70 odd zombies that can be stumbling around the playing area, it can feel a little clunky to manage despite the fairly streamlined rules for the zombie phase.
In fact, with it's involved set up it all feels clunky. Playing with 6 characters can also slow it down somewhat with what seemed like lengthy downtime between turns and overall play time.

I don't think this makes Zombicide: Undead or Alive a bad game, there's nothing bad here and if you like the western theme, you'll probably have a fun time with it but for me, it felt like the payoff wasn't worth the effort to get there.​

July's game totals were almost identical to June which had only 1 more first play than July. Different games played was identical for both months.

That's very consistent and regular! My GP would be happy!

First plays: 7
Games played: 35

Sunday 30th Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers
Can't Stop
Tiny Epic Defenders
Just One
Sagani
Gang of dice

Thursday 27th Aldershot
Scout
Village Rails
Cascadia

Tuesday 25th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Oriflamme - First Play!
Parks
Akropolis

Sunday 23rd Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers
Roll'n Bump 
Carcassone
Gizmos
Just One
Sagani
Gang of Dice - First Play!

Friday 21st Simon's
Earth - First Play!

Tuesday 18th Simon's
Forgotten Waters 

Monday 17th Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers
Just One
Railroad Ink
Canvas
Expeditions: Around The World - First Play!
Sagani

Sunday 16th Simon's
Forgotten Waters

Sunday 16th The Sovereigns
Port Royal
Scout
Deep Sea Adventure

Saturday 15th Wogglecon 8
Point Salad
Bandido
7 Wonders
Celestia
Flamecraft - Kickstarter Edition - First Play!

Tuesday 11th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Deep Sea Adventure
Jump Drive
Love Letter

Sunday 9th Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers
Can't Stop
Roll'n Bump 
Just One
Dragonwood
Sagani

Friday 7th Simon's
Spartacus: A game of Blood and Treachery  - First Play!

Thursday 6th Aldershot
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
Machi Koro 2

Tuesday 4th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Century: Eastern Wonders
Machi Koro 2

Sunday 2nd Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers
Can't Stop
Railroad Ink
Splendor
Just One - perfect score!
Sagani - First Play!

25th July 2023

Tuesday is here again and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club and it's time for some card-based entertainment.

According to Wikipedia: ​

What's in a game?
​
Cards: There is a set of 10 oversized unique cards in each player colour and each set features the same set of identical cards.
The cards fall into 1 of 2 categories; characters and intrigues, each depicts either a personality or situation, along with a scroll (in player colour) containing text which describes that card's action.
Actions might include acquiring influence tokens or eliminating other cards and so on.
Finally, the back of each set depicts its own in icon in its player colour.

Influence tokens: There are 70 of these circular card tokens. Each point of influence  a represent victory point (VP).

Resolution direction tile: This tile depicts a bloody spear! It is used to indicate the direction of play.

Component quality is at the standard you'd expect from a modern game nowadays. The  tokens are suitably sturdy and the cards look fine. Nothing bad to write about here.

Painted artwork features throughout the cards, it's good looking art and each of the 10 individual card types has its own illustration. The art direction is relatively dark and moody, it fits the game's theme of betrayal and assassination quite well.

Iconography is kept to a minimum in Oriflamme with only a coupe of symbols to content with and most game information is relayed via text. This shouldn't pose any problems for players

How's it play?
Setup

• Players: Give each player a 10 card deck in their player colour.
  Now players should shuffle their cards and discard 3 face-down, other players should not see which cards their opponents have discarded. The remaining 7 cards constitutes each players' (now asymmetrical) hand.
  Each player should take 1 influence token.
• First player: Determine a starting player.
• Direction tile: This tile should be placed in the central playing area and will indicate the direction of play when placing cards and during the resolution phase.

On to play
The objective in Oriflamme is to acquire the most influence tokens over 6 rounds.
Each round is played over 2 phases and importantly, some extra rules will come into player after the 1st round
In the 1st phase players will be collectively creating a row of cards called the 'influence queue' along the direction tile and this is done in a traditional turn order.
During the 2nd phase, the cards will potentially be revealed in 'resolution' order which will likely be different to the turn order from the previous phase. When a card is revealed, its action is immediately resolved.

• ​Placement phase: In turn order and starting the first player, each player will choose and play 1 card face-down into the influence queue.
  First card: The first card played into the queue can be played 'anywhere'.
  Subsequent cards: All cards that follow must be placed to the left or the right of cards currently in the queue; that is at either the start or the end.
  Once all players have placed a card, the next phase occurs.
• Resolution phase: This phase is resolved in resolution order, that is the order the cards have been placed in the queue and thus starts with the 1st card in the queue whose player becomes the active player.
  Active player: When it comes to resolving their card, each player must choose from 1 of 2 options.
  • Add influence: Add 1 influence token from the supply to the card and move on to the next card.
  • Reveal card: The player must flip their card and resolve it, this will trigger one of several effects. Effects must be carried out in full if possible, even if it is detrimental to the active player and might include the following:
    Earn influence tokens: An action may allow the active player to gain influence.
    Steal influence: This allows the active player to take an influence token from a player's personal supply not from on a face-down card.
    Eliminate a card: When any card is eliminated, it is discarded from the queue and the active player earns 1 influence.
    Discard: A card that is either discarded for any reason or action, or eliminated follows the same rules.
    A discarded card is removed from the queue and returned to its owner, the queue is then 'closed up' to fill the gap. If the discarded card was face-down, it is revealed and any influence tokens that were on it are also discarded.
    ​Discarded/eliminated cards always remain face-up for all players to view.
• Next round: When a round ends, it is possible that all, none or some cards to be revealed and for some or none of the cards to be discarded/eliminated: Regardless of this, once all cards have been addressed, it is time for the next round.

Subsequent rounds: After the 1st round has been played out, all following rounds have a couple of extra rules/options.

• Placement phase: As well as putting a card at the start or end of the queue during this phase, players also have the option to put the card face-down on top of one of their own cards, creating a 'stack'.
  Only the top card in a stack is considered in play, everything beneath it is not. If the top card on stack is discarded, then whatever was beneath it is now considered back in play.
• Resolution phase: The following rules now apply during this phase.
  • Add influence: If a card is face-down, the active player may add a further influence token from the supply to the card. Thus, if a card from a previous round was not revealed, another token may added to it and they can continue to accumulate so long as the card remains face-down.
    Influence cannot be added to a face-up card.
  • Reveal card: The active player can reveal their card as normal, if there were any influence tokens on the revealed card are acquired by the active player and the card's action is resolved as normal.
    It should be noted that any actions that target other cards, only ever targets the top card in a stack.
  • Face-up card: If a card was face-up from a previous round, when it's turn comes up in queue, it's action must be resolved as usual, even if it is detrimental to the active player.

Endgame
Play progresses until the 6th round has been completed.
All players calculate the totalled value of their influence tokens.

Point are tallied, highest score wins,

Overall
Oriflamme is a game of power grabbing, hidden motives, ambush and assassination which feels like it's set in a brutal world, a world where the wealthy and influential battle it out and vie to rise to power. In other words, a reasonable facsimile of medieval Europe.
While the game is somewhat abstract, it does feel quite appropriate and fit its theme.

​Mechanically, Oriflamme is pretty straightforward, it might get a touch fiddly when managing stacks but otherwise is easy to learn.

The rules aren't really that important here, this is not about playing the game. It's all about playing the players.
The complexity comes in how the cards interact with each other and their relative position to each other in the queue.
Players will need to watch their opponents, try and gauge their tactics and respond appropriately. They'll also need to watch which cards get revealed and discarded.
Oriflamme does a neat trick here though; by getting players to discard cards randomly it creates asymmetrical hands. Card counters won't be able to know exactly what cards other players can use. This imperfect knowledge means that there always a degree of risk to actions.
Depending on the type of people playing, there may well be some bluffing going on which is entire on par for the game.

With only 6 rounds, Oriflamme has a fairly quick play time, although that is with the caveat of not having players who suffer from analysis paralysis.
It's also a game of 'take that', direct interaction, conflict between players and will likely lead to some boisterous gameplay.
For me, it's something I don't mind in limited quantity but for some people this is can be off-putting and Oriflamme probably isn't for them.

I found Oriflamme to be an enjoyable and engaging game (Albeit with some stress!) that blends a bit of logic and strategy with a dash of luck to create meaningful and interesting decisions that might possibly lead to unpredictable outcomes. This makes it a good game in my opinion.

23rd July 2023

It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming.

The life of a mafioso underling is a bit of a tricky one. You want to impress 'The Don' but just not too much in this push-your-luck dice game about a retiring mob boss looking for a replacement.

Will Gang of Dice be an 'offer you can't refuse' or 'just strictly business'?

How's it play?
Set up

• Players: Give each player a screen.
  Dice: Give each player 9-12 dice depending on player count.
  Tokens: Also give each player 9-12 tokens dependant on player count. Then put 6 tokens aside, these will be used in the final rounds of the game.
• Warning cards: Sort the cards into their 2 types according to colour on the back of the cards, shuffle each into a face-down deck and remove 3 from each deck.
  Next, place the light coloured cards on to the dark, thus creating a 12 card face-down deck where the last cards to be revealed will be the dark coloured ones.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
Gang of Dice is played over 12 rounds and players will face a different warning cards in each one. A warning card is essentially a restriction that players do not want to break. They will be attempting to roll their dice with the aim of getting the highest numbers possible without going over or breaking the restriction (I.e., going bust.).
Gang of Dice uses a typical turn order with the active player acting before play progresses to the player on their left.

• Reveal card: Flip over the topmost card from the deck and this will reveal the warning for that round.
  A warning card will be contain something like 'don't roll 7 or higher' or 'don't roll identical numbers', etc.
  Whether the card is an explosive or bomb card will also affect play as described below.
• Active player: The active player must next make some decisions, keeping in mind what is on the current warning card.
  • ​Choose number of dice: The active player must choose how many dice they want to roll, this must be at least 1 die and will not change throughout their turn.
  • Roll the dice: The active player now rolls their chosen number of dice and compares how well they did in relation to the warning card.
  • Rerolls: If the active player is unhappy with the result, they may choose to reroll any number of the dice they initially rolled. Then after that, if they choose, they may reroll any number of their dice 2nd time.
  • Check results: Once the active player has finished rolling, they should compare the result against the warning card.
    Bomb: If the active player's final result has crossed the threshold of the warning card (E.g., if the warning card stated 'don't roll 7 or higher' and the final result was a 9.) then the active player has failed! They are out of contention for winning the round.
    Explosion: How this type of warning card works is a little different. If the result of any of the active player's rolls fails the warning card, then the active player immediately fails! This can occur during any of the rolls and consequently makes explosion warning cards a more risky proposition.
    Contender: If the active player's final result has not failed, then they are in contention to win the round.
  • Next player: Once the active player has resolved their dice, play progresses to the player on their left who becomes the active player and begins their dice rolls against the warning card.
• End of round: Once all players have completed their turn, the following occurs.
  Declare winner: From among the contenders who did not fail the task, whoever has the highest score wins the round and their prize for winning is to collect all dice used by all players for that round.
  All failed: If all players failed, then all the dice used in current round are added to the prize for the subsequent round.
• Next round: Once the winner of a round has been determined, the following occurs.
  New first player: Whoever won the last round becomes the first player for the following round.
  Reveal new warning card: A new warning card is flipped.
• Final rounds: Once the first 9 rounds have been completed, a slight change to the rules occur.
  10th round: Whoever wins the 10th round, also wins a token (From the 6 tokens set aside during setup.).
  11th round: The winner of this round also wins 2 tokens from the tokens.
  12th round: You guessed it, whoever wins the final round gets the last 3 tokens.
• Additional rules:
  Out of dice: If a player runs out of dice, they can 'buy' dice from their opponents by paying for them with tokens. Each token spent this way earns the spender 3 dice.
  Out of tokens: If a player is out of dice and tokens, then they are eliminated from the game!

Endgame
Once the 12th round is over, so is the game!
Players now calculate their finishing scores.
Each die is worth 1 victory point (VP) while each token is worth 3VPs.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
In Gang of Dice, dice represent gangsters and players are trying to gather the biggest gang to become the new boss. It sort of fits but is also a little abstract.

Gang of Dice is a pretty straightforward push-your-luck dice game with a core mechanic that's been used many times in other games. That's not a bad thing, it just means experienced players will be on familiar ground.

Where the game does add something is in the use of warning cards to change objectives every round, players will have to think about how many dice to use in response and have to balance the need to get a higher score with avoiding going bust: Get a result that's too low and a player has a smaller chance to win the round but too high and they go bust. It forces the player to make meaningful decisions both with dice selection and choosing to do rerolls or not.
Add to this the risk of going bust while using too many dice means potentially gifting even more of them to other players. There's definitely some swingy scoring going on here. Watching what other players ahead in the turn order are doing and what results they get is important and may make players change their approach.
Explosive warning cards also up the ante a little more so to speak. Players will need to be much more careful with how they take risks here as a single roll can wreck their chances of a win.
Finally, the last 3 rounds increase the stakes, as players can also earn tokens. E.g., round 12 will earn the winner 3 tokens which are work 9VPs. Things can potentially change quite a lot in these last 3 rounds and I feel it serves as a bit of a catch-up mechanic.

So I think Gang of Dice is solid mechanically. The problem I have with it is that it's just a bit average, I feel its unique points don't do enough to differentiate it from other games that provide a similar experience but t in a better way. There are other games of this type that I prefer.

Where Gang of Dice is strong is in its relative simplicity. The rules-light gameplay and accessible theme would be suitable for younger players or non-dedicated gamers. If you're looking for a push-your-luck dice game, this one does nothing wrong and I imagine would be a good crossover game.
For me though, it would not be my first choice.

21st July 2023

It's a Friday evening and we're round Simon's for some gaming fun!

​Life finds a way.... to create a tableau of cards with little green cubes and plastic plant stalks in Earth, a engine-building, action-selection game.

I wouldn't call it a barrier to playing the game considering the type of player the game is aimed at but still there are quite a lot learn.
​If I had one criticism, it would be that the 4 colours associated with the 4 actions could be a more contrasting.

How's it play?
Setup

• Fauna board: First decide which side of the fauna board to use.
  For this blog, we'll be using the standard side.
  Fauna cards: Shuffle the fauna cards into a deck and deal 4 on to the pertinent spaces on the fauna board. Either side of the fauna card can be used.
  Ecosystem cards: Shuffle the ecosystem cards into a deck and deal 2 and place them on to their spaces, again, either side can be used.
  Earth cards: Shuffle the earth cards (that is the flora, terrain & event cards) into what will be a quite large face-down cards
• Players: Give each player a player board and tokens in their player colour. The standard side of the player board should be used.
  Cards: Shuffle the island and climate cards into their respective decks. Next deal 2 island, 2 climate and 2 ecosystem cards to each player.
  Players must now decide to keep 1 of each type, they are free to use either side of the cards they were dealt, thus will have a choice of 4 for each.
  Starting resources: The island card that a player chose will dictate what the player's starting resources will be. This will involve drawings a number of earth cards into their hand, some of which will then have to be composted​. When cards are composted, they are placed face-down on to the compost space on a player's board. Players compost cards in 2 ways; from their hand or from the deck.
  Players will then also acquire an amount soil tokens.
• First player: Determine the starting player then give them the first player and active player tokens.

On to play
In Earth, players will be looking to create a tableau of earth cards (which for the most part will be flora cards) to earn VPs as well as create an engine. They will need to acquire and 'plant' cards in a 4x4 grid that will allow them to create growths and sprouts which in turn will also have uses as well as being worth VPs in this very interconnected game.

Earth uses a traditional turn order with the active player selecting 1 of the 4 available actions to perform during their turn as well as trigger additional associated actions. Other players, albeit to a lesser extent will also be able to perform that action as well as triggering their own additional actions.
Even though only 1 player is the active player, it is generally possible for all players to perform their actions simultaneously.
A turn plays out as follows.

• Action Selection: The active player now chooses 1 of the 4 available actions and places the active player token above that action on their player board. This easily allows other players to see which action has been chosen.
  • Plant: This is the green action.
    Play card: This actions allows active player to put 1 or 2 cards from their hand into their tableau by paying their cost in soil.
    Tableau creation: Each player will create a card tableau over the course of the game. A tableau cannot exceed a 4x4 grid. When starting a tableau, the first card can be placed 'anywhere' in the tableau. Subsequent cards must be adjacent to another card, either diagonally or orthogonally.
    Draw cards: The active player then draws 4 cards from the earth deck and keeps 1.
    Other players: All other players plant 1 card as per the rules and draw 1 card.
  • Compost: This is the red action.
    Gain soil: The active player gains 5 soil.
    Compost cards: The active play can compost 2 cards from from the earth deck on to their compost deck face-down.
    Other players: All other players may either gain 2 soil or compost 2 cards from the deck but not both!
  • Watering: This is the blue action.
    Gain sprouts: The active player gains 6 sprout cubes. These must immediately be placed on to available sprout spaces on flora cards. Any sprouts that cannot be placed are lost. Sprout cubes cannot be stored in a reserve or on a player board.
    Gain soil: The active player now gains 2 soil.
    Other players: All other players can either gain 2 sprouts or gain 2 soil.
  • Growing: This is the yellow action.
    Gain cards: The active player takes 4 cards from the earth deck into their hand.
    Gain growth: The active player now gains 2 growth which they can put on to growth spaces on flora cards.
    How growth works: For each growth a player has, they may place a stalk on to the growth space on a flora, if they are completing the last segment of growth, they ass a canopy as sign the growth has been completed.
    Each growth space has 2 numbers associated with it. On the left is shown how many growth segments can be stored there and on the right, how many VPs a fully created growth will score. As with sprouts, any growth that cannot be immediately stored will be lost.
  • Other players: All other players may either gain 2 cards or gain 2 growth.
• Additional actions: What are these additional actions mentioned above? Well, the 4 main actions each have a colour associated with it and when that action is chosen by the active player, all actions on all cards with the matching colour may also be activated by all players.
  Activation order: When actions on cards are activated, particularly when more than one is activated, they are always activated in a specific order, which is left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
  Player board or tableau: If actions on both a player board and tableau are activated at the same time, the player may choose whether to activate the board or tableau first. However, whichever one is activated first must be fully resolved before moving on to the other. The activation order mentioned above applies to both board and tableau.
  Multicoloured actions: Some actions are multicoloured. This means they are activated whenever a red, blue or yellow action is chosen, never the green.
  ​Black actions: A black action is a once-only action that occurs only when the card is first played.
  ​Brown actions: These actions will either have an ongoing effect during the game or provide a end of game scoring opportunity.
• Bonus action: Technically unrelated to colours, each player has the option to spend 3 sprouts to gain 2 soil. This can be done at anytime except during the watering action and prevents players from simply turning sprouts into soil to make room for more sprouts.
• Event cards: These can be played pretty much at any time during the game except in the middle of another action and have a variety of functions. Event cards have no cost but may earn VPs, it's also fairly common for them to lose VPs as well.
  Once played, event cards are discard face-up in the event card pile on a player's board. They are not composted and thus score the VPs found on the front.
• Next player: Once all players have resolved all their actions. The turn is over, the active player passes the active player token to the player on their left who now become the active player.

Endgame
The endgame is triggered as soon as any player plants the 16th card in their tableau. That player should place one of their leaf tokens on to the 7VP spot on the fauna board.
Play then continues until all players have had equal turn and then goes to scoring.

Earth provides players with a wide variety of avenues to score points.

• Base VPs: Score the VP values shown on all cards in play, this also includes cards on the player board.
• Event cards: Score VPs from all event cards in the event card discard pile.
• Compost: Score 1VP per card in the compost pile.
• Sprouts: Score 1VP per sprout on flora cards.
• Growths: Completed growths score their full VP value while incomplete growths score 1VP per section.
• Terrain cards: Calculate VPs earned from terrain cards.
• Ecosystem cards: Each player scores their personal ecosystem card as well as the 2 shared cards.
• Fauna board: Players now add in the VPs acquired from leaf tokens they placed on the fauna board - this includes 7VPs for the player that triggered the game end.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
In Earth, the tableaus that players are creating are literal islands that will expand and grow from their origin point, where different terrains and flora will spread, endure events and attract fauna. Each island will develop its own set of interconnected ecology in the form of its game mechanics and engine.
In this regard, Earth fits its natural world theme pretty well.

​Mechanically, Earth blends tableau building with resource management and action selection.
Whilst not particularly complicated, there are a lot of 'moving parts' to Earth and a lot for players to think about and many ways to score. Soil, sprouts, growth and even cards are all resources that must be managed and all of those bar soil also generate VPs. The game's engine building frequently demands that one resource be spent to gain more of another and so on. Classic engine building stuff.

It means that players need to really think about which cards they will use to create their tableau, this will involve considering not only the abilities on the cards but also their position within the tableau as this will affect how well they 'combo' off of each other.
​Furthermore, players will probably need to think about the plant and habitat types of the cards they want to play and how that effects their scoring opportunities. Terrain cards throw even more into the mix with some often almost random objectives requiring the placement of cards in certain ways or scoring off of hand size or compost size.
With so many ways to score that can arise in diverse combinations, it's kind of hard to describe how to play Earth but players will need to recognise opportunities to exploit when they appear and possibly rethink their approach. There's some flexibility to how an island expands and players may find themselves changing strategies partway through the game to accommodate new goals they have acquired

While Earth has a fairly lengthy playtime, especially with a higher player count, it never feels like it due to how most of the game can played out simultaneously.
It's also definitely not one for beginners and leans towards the heavier end of the difficulty scale. Fortunately, it's not too hard to learn and cards will contain a lot of the information that players need.

For me, Earth strikes all the right notes and is a game I enjoy playing:  It provides a balance between accessibility and depth along meaningful decisions and has a engaging theme. It doesn't hurt that it's filled with fantastic imagery and components that looks great on the table.
Definitely one to try.

17th July 2023

It's a Monday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some online tabletop entertainment.

All around the world, we could make time
Rompin' and a-stompin' 'cause I'm in my prime

Expeditions: Around the World is about going on a world tour in this route building game, not as some rock band but as a tourist.
Not any tourist either! But one who constantly trying to change itinerary of the tour to their chosen destinations. 

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

What's in a game?

• ​Game board: The board features a map of the world illustrated in lovely detail. Jungles can see seen in Africa, Ayers rock in Australia, the Coliseum in Rome, there's also dolphins and boats in the seas etc.
  The map is also littered with dots in various colours connected by a network of dashed lines.
  Green dots represent 'named destinations', that is places that the players may wish to visit.
  Blue and yellow dots represent hubs which connect to green dots, they also serve other functions which will be displayed below.

• Tokens: Several types of token are used in Expeditions: Around the World
  Player tokens: There are 4 tokens in each of the game's 6 player colours.
  Ticket tokens: There are 40 of these ticket styled tokens.
• Arrows: There are 45 arrows in each of 3 colours, used to direct each of the 3 titular expeditions.

The art for Expeditions: Around the World with its real world references is vibrant and colour and an overall excellent quality.
I imagine it would have a strong table presence.

The game's iconography is kept to an absolute minimum, being limited to 3 colours and dotted lines. Players will have no problem understanding this game.

How's it play?
Setup

• game board: Put out the game board. Shuffle the destinations cards into a face-down deck and deal 6 face-up. If any destination cards are too close to the starting location as per rules, put them to the bottom of the deck and draw replacements.
  These cards constitute common destinations for all players.
• ​Players: Each player should take the tokens in their player colour and 3 ticket tokens
  Next, deal 9-12 destination cards to each player (dependant on player count). 
• First player: Determine a starting player.
• Preparation: Beginning with the first player, each player should one-at-a-time reveal 4 of their destination cards and place one of their tokens at each of the locations relevant to the revealed destination cards.
  Players should keep the remainder of their destination cards secret from their opponents.
  Thus, there will common destinations, while every player will also have hidden and open destinations.

On to play
The objective for players in Expeditions: Around the World is to visit as many of the locations on their destination cards as possible as well as visiting the locations on the common destinations. This is done by directing the 3 different expeditions throughout the map by advancing them along the connections on the game map. It should be noted that the map 'wraps-around', that is, if a expedition goes off the right side of the board, it continues on the left side.
Play follows a traditional turn order with the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.
The active player must perform the following actions:

• Advance expedition: The active player must​ advance one of the 3 expeditions. This is done by placing 1 arrow of any expedition on to the board. The active player may advance any of the 3 expeditions, provided there are still arrows of that colour available.
  • Starting arrow: All 3 expeditions start at the same location in north Europe. Thus the first arrow of all 3 always starts there and heads outwards.
  • Place arrow: Following on from leaving the starting location, all subsequent arrows must start from the point of the last arrow of that colour that was played, continuing to create a path for the expedition, albeit with the following rules.
    No backtracking: 2 arrows of the same colour cannot share the same connection.
    Shared lines: However, arrows of all 3 colours can share space on the same line.
    Loop: If, after an arrow is placed, it creates a loop. Immediately place another arrow of that colour anywhere along the route of the expedition (Following the usual placement rules.). That is now the path of that expedition.
  • Resolve location: The newly placed arrow will obviously point at a new location and this must be resolved, how depends on it's colour.
    • Blue: If any expedition reaches a blue location, the active player may immediately place another arrow with the usual placement rules.
    • Green: This colour means the location is a destination and one of the following may occur.
      Common destination: If this destination is one of the 6 common destination cards, then the active player may claim that card. A new card is drawn from the deck to replace it.
      Token: If a expedition has reached a token. The player who owns that token takes it back, places it on the relevant open destination card and essentially claims that location. This can be done out of turn order.
      Hidden destination: If a expedition reaches a destination that matches a destination card a player has hidden in their hand, that player can reveal the card to claim the location. Again, this can be done out of turn order.
      However, that must immediately claim the location before another arrow is placed. It cannot be claimed at a later point in the game (Unless a different expedition also reaches that location.).
    • Red: If a expedition reaches a red location, the active player immediately gain a ticket.
      Speaking of which....
• Tickets: Each player starts the game with 2 tickets and can acquire more. They have various uses and up to 2 can be used during a turn. They can be both be used at the same time or separately, as well as before or after placing an arrow.
  Tickets have the following uses.
  Extra advance: A ticket may be spent to place an additional arrow, this can be for the same expedition as being advanced during the turn or a different one.
  Remove arrow: The active player may spend a ticket to remove the latest arrow placed on any expedition.
  Swap destination card: The active player may use a ticket to swap out one of their hidden destination cards. This is done by drawing 2 cards from the destination deck, keeping 1 and discarding the other along with a card from their hand to the bottom of the deck.
• Next player: Once the active player has finished their turn, player progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
The game end is triggered when either all arrows have been placed on the board or any player scores all their personal destination card. Play continues until all players have had equal turns, then goes to scoring.

Players score a victory point (VP) for each card they have claimed, either from the common objectives or their personal destination cards.
However, in true route-builder fashion, players lose 1VP for each unclaimed personal destination card in their hand.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Expeditions: Around the World is fairly strong thematically with the players actually creating and moving the expeditions along during the game. However, with no player having overall control of any of the expeditions, they've got to be among the most random expeditions ever!

All destinations in Expeditions: Around the World fall into 4 types: Shared or common destinations, open destinations which players had to declare, hidden destinations which players possess and whatever destinations remain in the deck.
Players will need to navigate all this imperfect knowledge to win the game.
Ideally, they'll want to 'steer' expeditions towards destinations that they can score. The problem though, is that they may also be steering them towards destinations that can be scored by opponents. With common or open destinations it's obvious when this is the happening but unsurprisingly, hidden destinations can be surprising.
Common objectives in particular add an extra layer to this and they can be tricky to acquire. Moving close to one might just allow an opponent to swoop in and claim it on their turn. Judicious use of tickets and blue spots is probably called for here!
That's pretty much it for strategy: I suppose there's possibly a higher level of play about watching opponents and trying to guess the destinations they are aiming for and directing expeditions accordingly.

Expeditions: Around the World is fairly light and as result is a straightforward, easy game to learn. Its theme is also easily understood. This makes it a good for non-gamers or younger gamers.

I'm not so sure what more dedicated gamers will make of it.
I found it a little unengaging and unsatisfying and for a route building game - a little frustrating. While it's not uncommon to have a route building game where no one entirely controls the routes, I definitely found it to be a frustrating experience here.
I feel there are other games that do route building better and this is one not for me.