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.

My massive backlog of games to talk about didn't lessen in 2022, only got worse.

2022 was a big year for playing games, bigger than 2021, which I thought was big enough! Below is the breakdown of games I played in '22 versus '21.

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

2021
Number of different games played: 78.
Of which were new (To me.): 46.
Total number of gaming sessions: 333.

Why have the numbers gone up so much? Two factors, 2022 saw the end of lockdowns and a full year of playing on Board Game Arena where not only could 5 or 6 games be easily played in an evening, some games could be played multiple times per session.

Most played games:

1. Lucky Numbers: 60 sessions
2. Can't Stop: 31 sessions.
3. Railroad Ink: 27 sessions.
4. Love Letter: 20 sessions.
5. Parks & Loco Momo: 15 sessions each.

Lucky Numbers has eclipsed Love Letter's 2021 tally of 43, which had dropped to 'just' 20 sessions in '22, having suffered from some playing 'fatigue'.
Lucky Numbers, with it's simple, unpredictable, luck based and strategy mechanics replaced Lover Letter as our regular 'finisher' on Sunday nights.

Now on to the industry-defining, glittering, 3 Spellcasters & a Dwarf annual game awards.
These are for games I first played in 2022, not necessarily games that were published in 2022. 

Game of the year: Cascadia
Cascadia is a tile-placement game with fairly simple rules but a wealth of options, strategies and approaches to scoring points. Players have to manage and optimise multiple scoring vectors that use tiles and tokens but rarely do they get to draft both the tiles and tokens they need, forcing them into meaningful, compromising decisions.
What more could you want?

Disappointment of the year: Terminator: Dark Fate The Card Game
This co-operative deck-builder had some interesting ideas but also seemed broken, so much so that we struggled to make any headway into the game. It felt like the game needed more playtesting and balancing.

Surprise of the year: Akropolis
Another tile-laying game! This time one with actual figurative multiple levels of gameplay!
Simple rules, lots of decision and a quick playtime make this game a cracking package.

Honourable mention: Parks
For a long stretch of 2022 I thought that this worker-placement, resource-management game was going to be the game of the year until Cascadia came along.
With limited workers spaces along the hiking trail, players are faced with trying to anticipate their opponents actions while also prioritising their own and gather the resources to buy point scoring cards.
Parks also has some of the best components and artwork I've seen in a game for a while.

11th November 2022

It's a Friday and I'm at the office in Woking for some end-of-week gaming fun.

You know you can't go wrong when you're playing a board game set in Renaissance Italy.
In this case it's Florence and about princes which is about as Renaissance as it gets! All you need are some Medici and Borgia to round it all off!

In The Princes of Florence players take on the role of wealthy nobles trying to out do each other by enticing artist and scholars to their estates to create 'works' which in turn gives players bragging rights - which is what is important obviously.

• Cards: There are several types of cards in The Princes of Florence.
  Bonus cards: These cards can increase the value of works when they are created. 
  Prestige cards:  Endgame bonus PPs can possibly be earned by prestige cards.
  Profession cards: There are 21 professions in the game that players will be looking to recruit.
  Recruiting cards: Used to err.. recruit professions! Specifically, profession cards played by other players.
• Tiles: There are landscape and building tiles and they're sort of tetramino shaped. Building tiles: There are 10 types and they come in small, medium and large. Each one depicts a building of some sort, ranging from a chapel to a university.
  Landscape tiles: There are parks, lakes and forests.
• Tokens: There are a number of card tokens.
  Freedoms: There are rectangular tokens for each of the 3 'freedoms', freedom of travel, opinion and religion.
  Builders: Square tokens represent builders, which aid when acquiring building tiles.
  Jesters: These are circular tokens. Jesters provide bonuses when scoring the value of a work.
  Money: Finally, there's circular tokens of various sizes to represent differing denominations of florins; the game's currency.
• Pawns: There's a pawn in each player colour used to track PPs as well as a black 'first player' pawn.
• Discs: There are also chunky scoring discs in each player colour to track work values, there is also a black disc is used to track the round count.

All the components in The Princes of Florence are well made. The tokens and cards are what you'd expect. The tetramino tiles feel nice and sturdy, as do the game and player boards.
Amusingly, the pawns are all wearing wide-brimmed hats, got to have some protection from that scorching Mediterranean sun!

Broadly speaking there there are 2 art styles utilised in The Princes of Florence.
Tiles, tokens and some of the player boards are decorated with full colour illustrations. They are quite stylised and almost simplistic illustrations but they are effective and feel appropriate for the setting.
All the game's cards (Particularly the profession cards.) are illustrated with a sepia coloured line art style. It contrasts with the art style but also compliments it and again, is appropriate for the setting.
The standout art-wise is the game board where nearly each space on the scoring track has its own unique illustration. It shows that little extra effort put into the presentation that shows care for the game which I appreciate.

There's little in the way of iconography, mostly its appears on the player boards in the form of silhouetted tetramino shapes for buildings but even so, they are also labelled.
Most information is relayed through text. Speaking of which...
The game uses a distinct and flowery font for text. It looks suitable for a renaissance themed game but can be a little harder to read than it could be and also tends to make the player board and cards a little more complex then they actually are.
It's a minor quibble and in no way a gamebreaker though.

On to play
The Princes of Florence is played over 7 rounds.
Each round is divided into an auctioning phase and an action phase.
Auctions allow players to bid for items which will aid them during action phases.
The action phase uses the usual turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.

• Auction phase: During this phase, players may bid on 1 of 7 different objects, there are some rules for auctions.
  • Auctions: In a round, there will be a number of auctions equal to the number players, additionally, there are some rules when resolving auctions.
  • Opening bid: Whoever starts a bid chooses 1 of the 7 objects to bid on. The objects are: Forest/Lake/Park landscape tile, builder token, jester token, prestige card or recruitment card.
    Once they've placed their opening bid, other players in clockwise order may place a higher bid or pass.
  • Passing: If a player passes on a bid for any reason, then they are out for the rest of that particular auction.
    Winning: When all players bar one pass, that player wins the auction, the winner take the object they won pays for it and cannot participate in any further auctions in that round. Thus, a player can only 1 object per round through auctions.
  • 1 auction per object type: Once a object has been won in an auction, no further objects of that type can be bid on.
  • Objects: When a player wins a bid, they take 1 of the 7 following objects as explained below:
    Landscape tiles: Forest lakes and parks. When one of these is taken, it must immediately be placed on their board's grid.
    Builders: These tokens are added to their allotted spaces on the player board going from left-to-right. They will provide bonuses when building.
    Jesters: These tokens should placed on the palazzo space, they increase the value of works... with the strength of their humour I guess!
    Prestige cards: Draw 5 and keep 1, placed the remainder at the bottom of the deck.
    Recruitment cards: Take a recruitment card, it can be used immediately or saved and used during the controlling player's turn later.
    Playing recruitment card allows a player to take a profession card that has been played by another player.
  • End of auction: Once all players have won an auction, play progresses to the action phase.
• Action phase: During their turn, the active player may perform 2 actions from the following list of 5.
  • Build: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    The active player may buy and place a building tile on their grid. The tile can be placed in any orientation on the grid but cannot be directly adjacent to another building unless the player has acquired at least 2 builder tokens. Builder tokens can also give discounts to the cost of buying buildings.
    Finally, when a building has been placed on the grid, the player immediately earns 3PPs.
  • Acquire a bonus card: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    The active player pays for a bonus card and draws 5 cards from the deck and keeps 1, returning the 4 other cards to the bottom of the deck.
  • Buy a 'Freedom': This action can only be performed once per round.
    The active player may buy one of the freedoms and immediately places it on the appropriate space on their player board.
  • Buy a profession card: This action can only be performed once per round.
    The active pays for a profession card then draws 5 and keeps 1, returning the other 4 to the bottom of the deck.
  • Complete a work: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    With this action, the active player may complete a 'work', this has several steps and involves calculating the work's 'value'.
    Play profession card: The active must play a profession card from their hand. Each profession has 3 things they 'want'; a building, landscape and freedom. Each one of these that that the active player owns will add to the work's value.
    Jesters and profession cards in hand or played also add to the value.
    Finally, if the active player has a bonus card, it can be played now to add to the value of the work.
    From this, the value of the work will be calculated.
    Minimum work value: If a work's value does not meet the minimum value of works for the round, it cannot be completed. Minimum values start at 7 in round 1 and go up to 17 in round 7.
    Rewards: Once a work has been completed and it's value has been calculated, the active play will gain rewards.
    ​Firstly; the active player moves their disc to along the scoring track to the number that matches the work's value.
    Then the active player gains 100 Florins per point. The player can choose to keep the money or immediately trade it in for PPs at a cost of 200 Florins per PP. This must be done immediately, it cannot be done later.
• Earn money: This is not one of the actions a player can take per se but any point in the game, any player may spend PPs to gain Florins at a rate of 100 Florins per PP.
• ​Next Player: Once the active player has completed their 2 actions, play progresses to the player on their left.
• Next round: Once all player have completed their turns, the round is over and the following 2 steps occur.
  Best Work: Whoever has created the single highest value work for the round gains 3PPs. All players should remove their discs in preparation of scoring works in the following round.
  First player: The first player marker should be moved to the player on the left who will start the bidding in the next round.

Endgame
Once the 7th round has been completed, the game goes to scoring.
Players now reveal any prestige cards they've acquired and score them, adding whatever they're worth to their score on the game board.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
In terms of gameplay, there's some nice mechanics going on. There's some interesting balancing that occurs with buildings. By virtue of their sizes, the larger buildings will be harder to fit in the grid and take up more room but they are wanted by more professions.

Auctioning in particular is also well balanced.
Because a player can only win 1 auction per round, it means someone who has a lot of cash cannot dominate all the proceedings. It means that every player can only ever get 1 object per round and it means that if a player has lost every auction and is the last player left in it, they can get any remaining object, unopposed and for just the cost of the opening bid.

During the action phase, synchronicity is important. Getting landscapes, buildings, freedoms and professions that 'riff' off each is very useful. E.g., both the goldsmith and bell maker want a 'workshop, or both the theologian and painter want freedom of travel.

Players will be looking to optimise their decisions especially when it comes to creating works which is a major source of income and potentially PPs.
Why is this so important? The Princes of Florence only has 7 rounds, which is only 7 auctions and 14 actions! Even the most efficient of players will probably find themselves unable to do everything they want they want to do in the rounds given. This forces them to make difficult decisions which is generally a good thing.

The Princes of Florence also has distinct early and late game states. Early on players will be looking to build up their estate, buildings, freedoms etc. In the late game they will likely be looking to create as many works as possible and convert them to PPs. If a player creates 2 works in a round, only the highest value one counts for end of round best work bonus but both will pay out Florins and consequently PPs.

I suppose that The Princes of Florence is a sort of 'mid-weight' game and by that I mean a game that isn't too complex but probably has a bit too much going on to be a good introductory or crossover game.
With having to win auctions to gain certain objects and cards, buildings to place, works to create and more, as well as having to consider how everything relates to everything else, there's a lot to think about.

But for more seasoned players, The Princes of Florence is a solid experience with well structured gameplay elements that all have a clear purpose which in turn presents players with meaningful decisions to make.
It also blends the individual aspect of a player building up their own palazzo and estate with the interaction of auctioning and drafting.
The Princes of Florence is definitely one to try.

Sunday 30th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 47
Can't Stop - 28
Carcassonne - 11
Azul - 9
Stella: Dixit Universe - 12
Splendor - 16
Roll'n Bump - 3

Tuesday 25th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Dice Hospital - 8

Sunday 23rd on Board Game Arena
Ticket to Ride - 3
Railroad Ink - 38

Sunday 23rd at The Sovereigns 
Point Salad - 2
Parks - 14

Tuesday 18th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Port Royal - 24
Furnace - First Play!

Sunday 16th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 46
Can't Stop - 27
Ticket to Ride - 2
Parks - 13
Roll'n Bump - 2

Saturday 15 on Board Game Arena
Jump Drive - 13

Thursday 13th Aldershot
Point Salad - First Play!
HeroQuest - 6

Sunday 9th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 45
Can't Stop - 26
Roll'n Bump - First Play!
Railroad Ink - 37
Ticket to Ride - First Play!

Sunday 9th at The Sovereigns 
Machi Koro 2 - 5
Kingdomino - 5

Wednesday 5th Simon's
It's a Wonderful World - 3
Roll for the Galaxy - 6
Love Letter Premium - 63
Cloud 9 - 4

Tuesday 4th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Paper Tales - 5
Akropolis - First Play!

18th October 2022

It's a Tuesday and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club.

​The Victorian era; a time of expansion, industrial and otherwise. Become a capitalist! Create your business and run your production line.

What's in a game?

• Cards: Furnace features several types of cards.
  • Capitalist cards: There are 5 of these, each one is unique and as well as an illustration of the capitalist in question also feature a way in which the owning player can 'break' a rule. Capitalist indeed!
  • Start-up cards: There are also 5 of these starter cards. Each one contains a illustration of a factory, above and below the picture it displays the card's abilities, this will always include the ability to gain (And use.) upgrade tokens.
    Abilities on cards may include production of a certain resource, or a process such as converting one resource into another or selling a resource for money.
  • Company cards: These form the bulk of the game's cards and they are double-sided.
    Basic side: At the top of each company card it will show a production or process ability, this is the compensation effect, more on this later. Next will a picture, usually of a factory, industrial plant or some such.
    Finally, below the picture will be 2 lines of abilities. The 2nd line will be 'greyed out' as it is 'inactive' at this time.
    Upgraded side: The other side of a company card is more or less identical to the basic side except for the compensation effect which is now gone and the 2nd ability line which is now coloured in and 'active', (As a result of the upgrade.)
• Round tracking tiles: A pair of tiles are used to represent and track the game's four rounds with a sort of replica cog-and-teeth mechanism.
• Tokens: Furnace has several types of tokens.
  • Resource tokens: There 3 types of resources in Furnace which are represented by shaped wooden tokens.
    Coal: Little black cubes are used to represent coal, OK, cubes are not very coal shaped items but they are little wooden cubes.
    Iron : These blue-grey rectangular cuboid tokens sort of iron-bar shaped and used to represent iron.
    Oil: Yellow octagonal cylinders are used to represent oil or more accurately, drums of oil. 
  • Bidding tokens: There are 4 differently sized bidding tokens in each of the 4 player colours.
    These are discs number from 1-4, additionally, the higher the number, the larger the disc.
    Neutral bidding token: There is also a 'colourless' bidding token that is only used when a particular capitalist card is in play.
  • Player marker token: For each player colour there is a uniquely shaped and illustrated card token. Black gets a top hat (Very dapper.), red gets a wallet (Displays of wealth are so uncouth!), white gets a pair of white gloves (Very suave.) and yellow gets a pocket watch.
  • Money: Circular card tokens are used to represent money which comes in various colours/denominations.
  • Upgrade tokens: There are also circular card tokens. They show a spanner inside a cog.

Component quality ranges from good to very good in Furnace. Cards and card tokens are the pretty standard good quality most games now have while all the wooden tokens are solid and good quality. The bidding tokens in particular standout as really chunky, tactile discs.

Artwork is good throughout the game with a nicely illustrated buildings and businesses.
It makes good use of a varied and colourful palette which helps to differentiate between the company cards which depict a variety of factories or offices and warehouses etc, which despite all being different sort of look a little samey.
Portraits used for capitalist cards are equally good quality.

The game's iconography looks a little daunting but in practice is straightforward and fairly practical. There are essentially 5 resources depicted and some basic mathematics mostly saying how to turn one resource into another and how may times it can be done.

How's it play?
Setup

• Players: Give each player the following.
  Capitalist cards: Shuffle the capitalist cards into a face-down deck and randomly deal 1 to each player.
  ​Start-up cards: Next, shuffle the start-up cards into a face-down deck and deal 1 to each player. Start-up cards also determine a player's starting resources.
  Tokens: Give each player the player token and bidding discs in their colour.
• Company cards: Take all the company cards and shuffle them into a deck with the basic side face-up.
• First player: determine a starting player.

On to play
Note: The rules described below use the 'advanced' variant rules, there's a reason for this which will be discussed further down.
The goal in Furnace is to acquire the most money by the end of the game.
Furnace is played over 4 rounds. In each round players will be bidding for company cards then adding them to their personal production lines. Next they will run their production to produce goods and ultimately generate money which is what wins the game.
The game uses a normal turn order during auction, with the first player bidding first before bidding moving to the player on their left. The production phase can be played out simultaneously.

• Auction phase: During this phase players will bid on the available company cards.
  • Deal company cards: At the start of each auction phase, the top card on the deck is shuffled back into the deck (To stop 'canny' players from knowing what the first card will be!), then deal 6-8 cards depending on player count with the basic side still face-up in a row. Placing them in a row can be important during the auction resolution.
  • Bidding: The first player bids for one of the company cards by placing any one of their bidding discs on the card they are bidding for.
  • Next bidder: Once the active player has placed their bidding disc, play progresses to the player on the left who can then make their bid.
    • Restrictions: There are however, some restrictions to bidding.
      No same colour: No 2 discs of the same colour may be placed on the same card. Thus, a player can only bid once on a card.
      No same number: If a card already has a bidding disc on it, no other player may bid on that card with a disc that has the same value.
  • Resolve auction: Once all players have placed all their discs, the bids on each card - going from left-to-right - are resolved, this  consists of 2 phases.
    • Highest bid wins: Whoever played the disc with the highest value wins the card, which they will add to their production line in the next phase. If a player wins more than 1 company card during the phase, they are all added to their production line one-by-one.
    • Compensation: It's not all bad for players that put a losing bidding token on a card, instead they get the compensation effect.
      The compensation effect is listed at the top of a company card, it might be produce resources or process them.
      Production: If it's resource production, the losing player(s) gain an amount of that resource multiplied by the value of their failed bid.
      E.g., if a player failed a bid with a 2-value bid on a card which has a compensation effect of 1 oil barrel, they would gain 2 oil barrels.
      If someone failed with a 3-value bid on card with 2 coal as compensation effect, they would gain 6 coal!
      Process: ​Alternatively, a compensation effect may include a process. In this case, the losing player may use that effect as many times as the value of their losing bid.
      Thus a player with a losing bid of 2 and a compensation effect process that allows 2 coal to be turned into 1 iron can use this process twice. Note: This must be resolved immediately, if a player does not have the required resources to complete a process when the auction on it is being resolved, they cannot resolve it later.
  • End of phase: Once all auctions on all company cards have been resolved, play progresses to the next phase.
• Production phase: During this phase players will add their newly acquired cards to their production line. Then players will run through their production line.
  Unlike the previous phase, players can choose to resolve their production phases one at a time or simultaneously.
  • Production line: First, a production line needs to be defined. A production line is a row of cards that run from left-to-right. The order of cards in a production line can never be changed.
  • Add cards to production line: Each player now add their newly acquired cards to their production line.
    Positioning: Cards maybe added to the start or end of a production line. They may also be placed in between 2 other cards, so long as the relative positioning of cards already played is not changed.
  • Run production: Once a player has added all the new cards to their production line, they must run it with the following stipulations.
    Left-to-right: All production lines start with their leftmost card and work through to their rightmost card.
    A card must be fully resolved (Or as much as a player can or wants to.) before the next card is addressed.
    Top-to-bottom: If card has multiple abilities - which is likely - they will be displayed in lines on the card. Abilities are resolved individually, going from top-to-bottom. An ability must be fully resolved (Or as much as wanted or can be.) before the ability below is resolved. Furthermore, if an ability can be used multiple times, they must all be completed before moving on.
    Upgrades: If a card that has already been used in a production is upgraded, it's new ability cannot be used. If the upgraded card is further down the line, then it's new ability can be used.
• End of round: Once all players have finished running their production lines, the round is over.
  Play progresses to the next round. Advance the round marker and begin the next auction phase.

Endgame
Once 4 rounds have been completed, the game is over.
Players calculate how much money they have accumulated.

Monies are tallied, most money wins

Overall
Furnace packs a lot of gameplay options into what is in essence quite a small package. The game consists of a deck of cards, some tokens and that's it

Even so, each of the main 2 phases provide players with interesting and meaningful decisions.

There are 2 mechanics to the auctioning and both are unique and present players with unusual options and interactions with other players.
Using bidding discs instead of money in auctions is an interesting proposition. First it means players only have 4 bids they can make and they can't re-bid on the same card if they get outbid. Players will need to determine what's important to them and bid appropriately. Turn order can make a difference here. A player going first who bids their 4-value disc on a card guarantees they will get it. Going later or last in bidding is not necessarily a bad thing to do, it allows a player to see what opponents are going for and bid accordingly.
There's definitely a higher level of play at work here from watching what other players look like they need and potentially taking it or denying it to them. Hate bidding I guess?

Which brings me to the other auction mechanic; compensation. Firstly, compensation works as sort of balancing mechanism, if a player loses a bid, they may still get something for their losing bid. Secondly, it's a mechanic that can potentially be exploited by players to gain resources quickly. A player make take the risk of making a lower value bid on a card, hoping to be outbid for the compensation, of course this can backfire and they may end up with a card they don't want to play.

Talking of playing cards, the next interesting mechanic how cards are played during the production phase.
I'll start by saying that whenever we played Furnace it was always using the 'advanced' variant 'production line' rules. By default the game does not use a production line, instead players just activate cards in any order they choose. In my opinion this makes the game less engaging.
I can't stress enough that the variant rules are vital to what makes Furnace a good game.
Having to think about where to place company cards is compelling and intriguing. Frequently cards will be useful both at the start and end of a production line forcing players to think hard make meaningful decisions in order to optimise their production lines.
Additionally, it's genuinely gratifying to run a production line that has been put together efficiently and ends up generating lots of cash.

Furnace is a game with a quick play time. In fact I found that the game's 4 rounds came to a conclusion all too soon, still having the urge to continue building my engine and that's a pretty good sign of a game I enjoy.
It's also a sign of good design balance; having a 4 round limit forces players to be as ruthlessly efficient as possible with little room for unnecessary moves. 4 round limits are something I've seen in other engine building games too.

So in conclusion; Furnace is pretty easy to learn, has a fast playtime but still manages to present players will a variety options both in auctioning and engine building. If these styles of games interest you, then Furnace is definitely a game to try.
I found it a engaging and entertaining experience.

13th October 2022

It's a Thursday and we're in Aldershot for a evening of gaming entertainment.

Do you like salads? Do you like points? If so, then maybe you'll like Point Salad, a game about well... about making salads and scoring points with a literal point salad mechanic!

What's in a game?

• Cards: Point Salad uses a deck of 108 cards and that's it. OK, there's a bit more to it.
  Each card is double sided with a veggie side and a scoring side. The veggie side features 1 of 6 vegetables/colours and the other,  the scoring side has scoring criteria related to the veggies.
  Veggie side: The vegetables (Or veggies) types are:
  Cabbage/purple.
  Carrot/orange.
  Lettuce/green.
  Onion/dark red.
  Pepper/yellow.
  Tomato/red (Yes, technically, tomatoes are a fruit but I digress.).
  Scoring side: The flip side of the cards each feature a scoring criteria or manner of point scoring, of which Point Salad has a wide variety.
  The scoring criteria tend to be based on combinations of veggies. For example,  8 victory points (VPs) per 3 onions or 10 VPs for the most tomatoes or 5 VPs for each pair of carrot and lettuce and so on. Some cards will give points for certain veggies and deduct VPs for others, some may score for not having any of a certain type of veggie!
  Finally, in the corner on a scoring card it will display which veggie is on the other side.

Point Salad's cards are pretty basic, they don't seem laminated and feel a little flimsy. Although unless you treat them badly, it shouldn't be a problem.

There isn't much art to Point Salad, only the illustrations for the 6 types of veggie. These are colourful, chunky illustrations with thick line art. I like it and think it suits the game's light, breezy theme.

The game's only iconography is the 6 vegetable types. For the most part, they are clear  and distinct. EXCEPT for the onion and tomato images which not only look a little similar but both use shades of red for their associated colour. It's not a gamebreaker by any means but it definitely can be a little confusing and could have been clearer
The scoring criteria are pretty easy to understand, it uses a mixture of the icons and text to explain their individual rules.

• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Point Salad players will be drafting cards from the central selection.
They will be drafting veggies to create sets and drafting scoring cards to score those sets.
Point Salad uses the typical turn structure with the active player acting before play progresses to the player on their left.

During their turn, the active player must perform 1 of the following 2 draft actions, additionally, they may then also perform a free action.

• Draft: The active player must perform 1 of the following 2 draft actions.
  Take 1 scoring card: The active player may take 1 card from the 3 scoring decks and place it in their personal area, keeping it with the scoring side-up.
  Take 2 veggie cards: The active player may take any 2 of the 6 veggie cards and add them to their personal playing area, keeping them veggie side-up and collating them into sets
  The cards that were taken are replaced by flipping and placing cards from their corresponding decks.
• Optional free action: Once per turn, the active player may flip 1 card from the scoring side to its veggie side. Players cannot flip cards from the veggie side to point side!​
• Next player: Once the active player has drafted and possibly performed their free action, player passes to the player on their left.
• Empty deck: At any time, if 1 of the scoring decks becomes empty, simply take the largest of the remaining decks and split it into 2 decks.

Endgame
Play continues until all cards have been drafted and then goes to scoring.

All cards are scored all ways! That means that if for example, a set of carrots can gain VPs from 2 scoring cards, then they are scored twice and so on.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Point Salad is a easy to learn game, there are only 2 actions (And 1 free action.) to choose from and 1 core tenement to remember; scoring cards score off of veggie cards.
The depth comes from what is done with those 2 decisions.

Getting scoring cards early on will give a player an objective to aim for but also can limit their drafting options.
Conversely, concentrating on veggie cards early will give a player some flexibility when it comes to acquiring scoring cards, the risk here though is that optional scoring cards may never become available because other players may get them first or they may get flipped to the veggie side or in game with a lower player count, may not even be in the game.

All of this means that planning ahead can be a two-edged sword. It's definitely worth trying to plan ahead, synergy between scoring cards, i.e., multiple scoring cards that score off 1 type of veggie can led to big scores.
However, the drafting area's landscape is likely significantly change from turn-to-turn and players will also need to adapt to circumstances as they arise. Players will also need to mange having to take cards they don't need or want and look to create or exploit new scoring opportunities as they appear.
The optional free card flip rule offers players a little flexibility. They'll be times that a points card with a negative may prove a liability might be worth flipping which negates the negative and also provides a veggie for another points cards. Again, this is all contextual.

There's also a higher level of play at work here. Players can try and anticipate their opponents are hoping to do and possibly stymy them. Taking specific veggie cards or scoring cards they might want or even taking veggie will cause points cards from the related column to be flipped to replace them

It means that Point Salad generally provides players will meaningful decisions and choices to make.

I find Point Salad an enjoyable game, it makes a great filler, plays up to 6 and also a good crossover or family game.
It's a game that you shouldn't take too seriously, it's a light, fun quick game. In fact it's so quick to play that it seems like the set up time longer than the play time! Which is my only, minor criticism of an otherwise good game.
It this sounds like your kind of thing, you should definitely give Point Salad a try.

9th October 2022

Another Sunday and another gaming session on Board Game Arena.

Do the roll and bump and put the trick taking back.
Do the roll and bump and put the trick taking back.
When the dice are good, so are you.
Next time you roll, you know what to do.
Do the roll and bump and put the trick taking back.

OK, dodgy references to 80's adverts aside, Roll'n Bump blends trick taking, set collecting with a dash of push your luck into a interesting little dice game.

• ​Dice: Roll'n Bump uses normal six-sided dice.
  Player dice: There are 5 dice in each of the game's 5 player colours.
  ​Bonus die: There is only 1 white bonus die in the game. Depending on circumstances, players may get to roll it with their dice during their turn.

Each of the 4 colours used on cards also have a unique pattern associated with them. This is a good accessibility feature. The joker card is of course the exception, having all 4 colours and all 4 pattern types on it.
Otherwise, the game has no artwork.

There's almost no iconography to the game either. There's only the 3 types of card to learn and that's trivially easy to learn.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Take the joker card a place it in the middle of the central playing area. Then shuffle the remaining cards into a face-down deck.
  Deal the cards face-down into 6-12 stacks of 6-3 card each depending on player count. Arrange these stacks around the joker in the central playing area, then flip the top card on each stack face-up.
• Dice: Give each player the dice in their personal player colour.
  Bonus die: Put the white die adjacent to the cards in the central playing area.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
​Players roll dice to create tricks to place on cards and then claim those cards in which in turn scores them VPs.
​Depending on the available cards, there are 3 ways this can be done. Additionally, the active player has the possibility of 'bumping' other players' dice. I.e., the other player's dice are removed from the card and replacing by those of the active player!
Roll'n Bump uses the typical turn order of the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.
On their turn, the active player takes the following actions.

• Claim card: Firstly, if the active player has dice on any cards in the central area at the start of their turn, they take those cards and their dice back.
  All cards taken should be sorted by colour and kept in the active player's personal area.
  When a card is claimed, the face-down card beneath is flipped face-up.
  Obviously a player can't claim cards on their first turn.
• Claim bonus die: How a bonus die can be claimed is explained below but regardless of this, if they can claim it, they do so now.
• Roll dice: The active player now rolls all of their dice and may choose to keep the result or reroll them up to twice as described below.
  Reroll: Once this is done, they may chose to set aside any number of dice - including 0 and reroll the remainder.
  2nd reroll: The active player may set aside more dice and/or take back dice they had previously set aside and roll the remainder again.
  Once the 2nd reroll is completed, there are no more rerolls
  Bonus die: The bonus die is used identically to a player's usual 5 dice, it can be rolled, set aside or rerolled as the player wishes.
  The bonus dice comes into it's own once the active player has finished rolling. The player can now change the side of any one of their normal dice to match the side shown on the bonus die. The bonus die itself is never placed on cards, players always have their 5 normal dice to place.
  
• Place dice: Now that active player has the result of their dice rolling, those dice may be placed on cards in the central playing area.
  • Singles: If a card is displaying a single number, the active player may place 1 or more dice with the matching number on to that card. E.g., if a card shows a '3', the active player may put a die showing a '3' on it.
    Bump: If a singles card already has another players die or dice on it, they can be 'bumped' off by putting more dice with the matching number on that card.
    E.g., if a card has a '4' on it, 2 4s will bump it off. Consequently, 2 4s can be bumped by 3 4s and so forth.
  • Straights: These cards display 3-5 overlapping blank boxes. This indicates the size of straight that must be placed on it to claim it. Thus 4 overlapping boxes means a straight of 4 dice must be placed on the card.
    A straight is considered a number of dice in numerical sequence without a break. 
    Bump: A straight can be bumped by another higher value straight. So a '2, 3, 4' can be bumped by a '3, 4, 5'.
    Note: If a straight ends in a '6', it cannot be bumped.
  • Sets: Blank squares are used to indicate sets cards and they come in 2, 3 or 4 spaces, except for the joker which has 5.
    These cards can be claimed with sets of any matching number. A set of 2 can be claimed with 2 5s, or a set of 3 can be claimed with a 3 1s.
    Bump: A set may be bumped by another set with a higher value. E.g., 3 1s can be bumped with 3 2s.
    Note: As with straights, high value sets cannot be bumped, i.e., any set that uses 6s cannot be bumped.
  • Unused dice: If the active player has dice that they cannot or choose not to place on cards, they can potentially be put aside next the bonus die to be claimed in the next turn.
    Bump: If another player has already placed dice adjacent to the bonus die, those dice can be bumped too! This can be done if a player has unused with a higher total value than dice already placed next to the bonus die.
    
  • Bonus die: If the active played used the bonus die on this action, once they've finished placing their dice, the bonus is returned to the side of the playing area.
• Next turn: Once the active player has finished their turn, play progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
Play continues until one of the decks has been emptied (The joker does not count.), when this occurs, all players immediately claim cards they have dice on and the game goes to scoring.

Scoring
All cards score in 2 ways, firstly they score their base VPs but then they also score as sets as per their colours: The more cards in a colour set, the more bonus VPs it earns. The joker can be added to any single colour set as chosen by the owning player.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Roll'n Bump is such a pared down game focused on the core of its push-your-luck driven gameplay without almost no 'schticks' that it's hard to find much to write about!
It does exactly what it says on the tin.

It has fairly straightforward, light rules which can be picked up very quickly, especially since it utilises mechanics which will be familiar in some way or other to many people.
Creating straights or sets, rerolling dice twice, it's all common stuff. Roll'n Bump would make a good crossover game.

Decision making is also pretty straightforward. Players must recognise and decide when and how to push their luck.
Roll'n Bump provides a classic risk-and-reward conundrum; settle for a low-scoring card or risk reducing that score to 0 to potentially score a different, higher value card.
Despite the overall simplicity of Roll'n Bump, there is a innovative mechanic to be found in the game; the bonus die.
I like how it can give an edge to a player without giving them extra dice to place. Being able to bump other players' used dice from the bonus dice can provide players with meaningful decisions. There will be times when a player might not put a die on a card because it could be used to acquire the bonus die for their next turn.

If I had one criticism of Roll'n Bump and considering it's a push-your-luck game, it might be a facetious criticism, it's that there's a lot of luck to the game!
Taking some big risks to put some dice on a card only to have another player flippantly bump them with a single lucky roll can be pretty frustrating.
Sometimes, someone will win simply because they lucked into a very good roll but that's the nature of the beast and something anyone playing this type of game should come to expect.

Roll'n Bump is unremarkable and doesn't really stand out from the crowd however it manages to tick all the right boxes for a push-your-luck trick taking game and offers a solid, simple and fun game without any associated fiddliness.
It also has a fairly quick playtime and would serve as a good filler or finisher game which is why we actually play it on a fairly regular basis.

If you're on the look out for a push-your-luck, trick taking game, Roll'n Bump is worth considering.

9th October 2022

Another Sunday, another session of gaming goodness on Board Game Arena.

Travel around North America, fulfil tickets, draft cards, create routes in Ticket to Ride. 

• Cards: Ticket to Ride uses 2 types of cards:
  Train car cards: These cards come in 8 different colours that correspond to the connection colours on the board and each colour also displays a different type of train car such a freight or passenger car.
  There also 14 'locomotion' cards, which are 'wild' cards.
  Destination cards: Each one of the destination cards shows the same map of North America as shown on the game board, 2 of the destinations on the card will be highlighted. Finally, each destination card has a associated victory point (VP) value.
• Train meeples: Should these be called 'treeples'? Hmm maybe not, could be confused with trees!
  ​There are 45 trains in each of the game's 5 player colours. The trains are sized so that 1 train meeple fits on 1 segment in a route.

I suppose that you could call the art on the board muted but I would say it's functional and unobtrusive. The board is quite busy as it is with all the routes crossing back and forth, overly elaborate art would just obfuscate important information, so it feels like a good decision to me.
Each colour of train card has it's own unique illustration which helps with accessibility issues. The illustrations are perfectly good if a little plain.
The destination cards essentially replicate the art on the board.

There's no notable iconography in Ticket to Ride and the game is straightforward to comprehend. There's just the 9 types of train car to remember and that's easy and intuitive. I imagine the biggest hurdle to overcome in the game's presentation is finding destinations on the map and the iconography does a lot to make that as easy as it can.

How's it play?
Setup

• ​Game board: Put out the game board.
• Train car cards: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck, deal 5 cards face-up adjacent to the board.
• Destination cards: Also shuffle these into a face-down deck.
• Players: First give each player all the train meeples in their player colour.
  Train car cards: Deal 4 to each player, this is their starting hand.
  Destination cards: Deal 3 destination cards to each player. Everyone decides how many to keep. A player must keep 1-3 destination cards.
  Destination cards should be kept secret players until the end game scoring, only then should they be revealed.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Ticket to Ride, players broadly speaking have 3 objectives, these are; build as many routes as possible, create a connection between the locations on their destination cards and finally, create the longest contiguous set of connections.
All of these will contribute VPs towards their final score.
This is done by drafting cards which in turn allows players to create routes.
Ticket to Ride uses the typical turn structure of the active player taking their action before play progresses to the player on their left.
In their turn, the active player can perform exactly 1 of the 3 following actions.

• Draft train car cards: This action allows the player to draw 2 of the standard 8 types of train car cards. This can be done by taking it from the 5 available face-up cards or drawing blindly from the deck.
  Locomotion cards: A player can only claim 1 locomotion card as their enntire drafting action.
  Shuffling: If at anytime there's 3 or more locomotion cards in the face-up line of cards, then all 5 are discarded and 5 new cards are drawn. Additionally, if the train car card deck becomes empty, the discard pile is shuffled into a new deck.
• Claim route: A route is a line of oblong spaces between 2 destinations. A route may a have a colour or may be 'grey'.
  To claim a route, the active player must discard train car cards of the matching colour and equal number of spaces to the route. A grey route can be claimed with cards of any colour provided they are all of the same colour.
  Locomotion cards: These can be used as train car cards of any colour.
  Place train meeples: Once a route has been claimed, the active player places a train meeple on every space on the route.
  ​This also means that no other player may claim this route.
  Some adjacent destinations will have 2 routes running in parallel, in games with 4+ players, the 2nd route can be also claimed. In 2 or 3 player games, 2nd routes are not in play.
  Scoring: When a route is claimed, it is immediately scored on the tracker. Routes run 1-6 spaces in length and correspondingly score 1-15 VPs.
• Draw destination cards: As their action, the active player may draw 3 cards and keep 1-3 of them, providing them with additional scoring opportunities (Or not as explained below!).
  Discarded cards are returned to the bottom of the destination deck.
• Next player: Once the active player has completed their action, play progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
When the active player has 2 or less train meeples remaining, the end game is triggered. Every player including the active player has 1 more turn then the game goes to scoring.

Players will add points from destination cards to their running total from the game and the player with the longest set of connections gains bonus VPs.

Destination cards are now revealed:

• Completed destination cards: Players earn the listed VPs for every destination card that they have completed (That is; any destination card where the owning player may trace a connection of their routes between the 2 destinations.).
• Incomplete destination cards: Every incomplete destination a play has will deduct VPs from that player's total.

Finally, whichever players has the longest contiguous set of routes earns a bonus 10 VPs!

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Ticket to Ride is a very popular, well regarded game and it's easy to see why. Lightweight rules that are genuinely elegant, almost minimalist that're easy to learn, a game that's intuitive to play with a theme anybody can understand. Ticket to Ride is definitely a game with crossover appeal, is a good game for casual play and introduction to board games.
It also has a fairly random distribution of destination cards throughout a game which provides a good level of variety to games.

This pared down set of rules means that Ticket to Ride also provides players with clear meaningful decisions to make.
Basic tactics are pretty straightforward: Players are in a race to connect their personal destinations before they risk getting blocked by other players. They'll need to balance getting cards they need to draft and claiming routes.
Since a player's routes do not need to connect, any player essentially can claim any route, anytime if they have the appropriate cards.

Completing destination cards can be quite satisfying and they add an extra wrinkle to the gameplay. Being able to acquire more of them during play can be a game changer, earning more VPs but conversely, is also risky, getting a card that is not completed obviously costs VPs.
What makes this even more interesting is during the late game this risk/reward mechanic becomes even more pronounced.
Acquiring a destination card late in the game can be very risky because the player may not have the required time to complete the connection. However, late in the game is when a player's train network is at it's biggest, consequently it's possible to gain destination cards which have already​ been connected.

There's also a higher level of play in Ticket to Ride. Watching what opponents are doing and successfully anticipating what connections they're trying to make can allow a player to block or slow their progress down by claim routes they might want. If you look at the map, you will see that that there are numerous routes which are only 1 or 2 space grey routes that are very easy for a player to claim, e.g., a 1 space grey route can be claimed with any train rail card. It's obvious this is by design.

This brings me to my main contention with Ticket to Ride: It's a game that promotes negative gameplay. What do I mean by that?
Claiming a route another player needs will force them to spend additional turns acquiring train car cards and then taking longer to claim routes around the block.
In terms of action economy, a player wasting 1 action to make an opponent waste 5 or 6 can be pretty advantageous.
Preventing an opponent completing a destination card may earn that player no VPs but for their opponents, it will cost them points.

Many Eurogames have mechanics which have sort of a balance to them where if a player screws over an opponent, they will also frequently screw themselves over and only occasionally can they screw an opponent over while advance themselves.
Ticket to Ride is not like that!

Although, in part this will be down to the type of people playing.
Dedicated players will learn and exploit blocking at every opportunity and why not? Games are for winning and getting a score of 1 while opponents get 0 is still winning.

More casual players may not care about higher level tactics. Early games will be light and fun but even so, after a while they'll end up realising (Probably by accident!) how powerful blocking can be.

Remember, earlier I said how connecting destinations can feel satisfying, well getting blocked can feel equally unsatisfying.

There's a lot that's good about Ticket to Ride and I wanted to like it but the negative aspect can just be too frustrating. I understand why the game has a lot of fans, I'm not one of them.

4th October 2022

Tuesday is here again and it means more gaming fun with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns in Woking.

You can't really go wrong when you set your game in ancient Greece! Is that the case here in this drafting, tile laying and city building game?

The tiles that come with Akropolis are possibly the thickest I've ever seen, they are incredibly chunky and solid feeling - fantastic!
The little cubes are wooden I think.
I don't usually bother mentioning the packaging for games, but the game box comes with inserts already fitted and filled with all the pre-punched tiles. This is excellent packaging.

The game uses bird's-eye illustrations of different types of buildings or neighbourhoods crossed with splashes of colours to represent the different districts. The same is true of the plazas.
Thus the 5 districts are differentiated by both colour and illustration. There 5 types of plaza each which correspond to a different district, they're also differentiated by the associated colour and have a small illustration similar to their associated district. Finally; quarries are grey.
The artwork is fairly subdued but the colour makes it pop. It's perfectly adequate but I wouldn't call it great.

The game's iconography is straightforward to learn and intuitive to understand. The districts and their respective plazas are easily associated.

How's it play?
​Setup

• Tiles: First sort the tiles to use as per the player count, then shuffle them into 11 face-down stacks of equal size.
  The size of each stack will be equal to the player count +1.
  There will be a number of tiles left over equal to the player count +2, these will form the starting 'Construction Site'.
  Construction site: When creating the construction site, those remaining tiles should be placed in a line. However, determine which end of the line is the 'start' before flipping the tiles face-up.
• Players: Give each a starting tile.
• First player: Determine the starting player and give them the first player token, this will set the turn order round-to round, with the starting player going first and the player on their left going next and so on.
  Stones: The starting player should take 1 stone from the supply, whoever goes next should take 2 stones and so on.

On to play
In Akropolis, players will be building their own city by drafting tiles from the construction site and adding them to the existing tiles in their personal area. Each type of district scores points differently and additional points can potentially be scored by building upwards!
Akropolis uses a standard turn order with the active player taking their action before play moves on to the player on their left.
During a turn, the following actions will occur:

• Take tile: The active player must take a tile from the construction site.
  Cost: The first tile at the start of the construction site is always free, however, each tile further down the line will cost an additional stone to acquire. In other words, if a player wants the 3rd tile down the line it will cost 2 stone. This means tiles later in the line will get cheaper over turns and eventually maybe even free.
  All stone paid is returned to the supply.
• Add tile to city: The active player must add the tile they just acquired to their city. There are 2 ways this can be done.
  • Expand: A player may expand their city outwards, this is done by placing at least one side of the tile against at least one side of a existing tile.
  • Upwards: A tile may also be placed on top of existing tiles. Before explaining the rules for building upwards, it's worth explaining why it can be a good to do so. Basically; districts which are correctly positioned in a city have a base Victory Point (VP.) value of 1. A district on the 2nd layer of a city has a base value of 2 VPs, on the 3rd layer base value is 3 VPs and so on.
    When build upwards, there are some requirements though.
    Across multiple tiles: When building upwards, tile cannot be placed directly on another single other tile, i.e., a tile must cross between at least 2 tiles when covering them.
    No overhang: When placing a tile on top of other tiles, there can be no overhangs.
    Covered spaces: Any districts or plazas covered by a tile will no longer contribute towards scoring at the game end.
    Quarries: However, each quarry space covered over, will earn the active player a stone and in fact, this is the only way to acquire additional stones.
• End of turn: Once the active player has had their turn, play progresses to the player on their left.
• End of round: A round ends when only 1 tile remains in the construction site.
  You will notice that since the number of tiles at the start of a round are equal to player count +2, it means the first player gets to take 2 tiles in the same round! (A 3-player game will start each round with 5 tiles and ends when 4 are taken, so the starting player is also the finishing player!) This is 'as designed'. Since the starting player player changes every round, over the course of a game, players will all have equal turns
  When the end of a round is reached, the following 2 actions occur.
  Construction site: The single remaining tile becomes now becomes the first tile in the line and new tiles from a face-down stack are added to the construction site and then flipped face-up.
  New starting player: The first player token is passed to the player on the left who will start the subsequent.

Endgame
Play continues until only 1 tile remains in the construction site and no stacks remain to refill it. The game immediately ends the final tile is not played (I've seen this happen!) and goes to scoring.

Scoring needs to be explained in a little detail.
The 5 types of district each score differently (As explained below). Thus, each type will generate it's own base score. Each hex that scores for it's district will score 1VP per hex per level. For the purpose of scoring, tile height does not affect adjacency. This means a house space will still be adjacent to another house space even if they're on different levels.
Finally, covered hexes score no points.

Once the base score for each district has been established, that score is multiplied by the number of stars on plazas (Not plazas themselves.) of the matching type the player has.
E.g., a player who has base barrack score of 5 and 4 stars on their barrack plaza spaces will score (5x4) 20 VPs.
Height makes no difference to plaza scoring multipliers: House plaza spaces always have 1 star (And thus a x1 multiplier.), barrack, market and temple plazas always have 2 stars (x2), while garden plaza spaces always have 3 stars (x3).
As with districts, covered plazas do not contribute towards multipliers.

There are actually 6 ways to score VPs.

• Barracks (Red.): Barrack spaces score it they are on the edge of the city, that is, at least 1 side of a barrack hex has nothing adjacent to it.
• Gardens (Green.): No matter where a garden space is situated, it always scores.
• Houses (Blue.): Only a player's single largest contiguous group of blue spaces is scored.
• Markets (Yellow.): A market space scores if it is not adjacent to any other market spaces.
• Temples (Purple.): A market spaces must be fully surrounded by any other spaces (Including other temple spaces.) in order to score.
• Stones: Finally, any unspent stones are worth 1VP each.

All base scores are multiplied by plaza multipliers and then totalled.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Drafting and tile placement mechanics, differing scoring based on relative positioning, even building upwards: These are game elements we've seen elsewhere lots of times but in Akropolis, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The game manages to wrap all of this into a elegant easy to learn, quick to play package that provides some thoughtful and meaningful decisions to make.

Just like city-planning, it pays to think ahead in Akropolis. Players want temples surrounded but they won't want to that with barracks and so on. Because the different scoring criteria pull against each other, players will need to think about where to place districts both immediately and in later turns in the most optimal manner. Maximising scoring while minimising conflict with other districts.
In practice, most players will generally end up trying to concentrate on 2 or 3 of the types of district, it's hard to score well in all 5.
All of this is of course contextual, depending on what appears where in the construction site. Players may find themselves competing for a particular type of district or if they're lucky, picking a district type being ignored by other players.
There's a bit of higher level play going on here that involves watching what other players are concentrating on and either denying it to them or ignoring it to optimise scoring with a different district.

It's also worth noting that districts are asymmetrical. While the garden district has flexible placement rules and and has a higher scoring multiplier, garden districts and garden plazas are both less common meaning competition between players for them can be fiercer.

Being able to build upwards adds an extra wrinkle into the mix because it can provide greater scoring but can also provide a headache. Sometimes players will need to cover a point-scoring district to get more points from a different district.
This bring me to quarries, they're initially mostly useless and can get in the way until covered but managing to put 3 together in a 'triangle' means covering them with a tile will earn 3 stones, very useful.
If players aren't careful, they can quickly run out of stones and only being able to take the free first tile during a turn can be painful experience when something so much better is further down the line.
Putting together blocks of quarries not only creates a place to build upwards but also earns stones when doing so.

All in all, I think that Akropolis is a very good, fun game, it's perhaps a little too long and involved for a filler and short for a whole gaming session, however, when players know what they're doing, it's entirely possibly to play a couple of games in a hour and why wouldn't you?
Akropolis immediately became a firm favourite of mine and is liked by pretty much everyone I play it with.
If tile-laying games appeal to you, this is definitely worth a try.

Friday 30th Farnborough
Machi Koro 2 - 2

Thursday 29th Aldershot
Heroquest - 5

Tuesday 27th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Port Royal - 23
Fluxx - 5
Cloud City - 16

Monday 26th Simon's 
Firefly: The Game - First Play!

Sunday 25th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 44
Martian Dice - 21
Loco Momo - 13
Cloud City - 15
Potion Explosion - 14
Dice Forge - 12
Sea Salt & Paper - First Play! ​

Friday 24th Farnborough
Jump Drive - 12
Puerto Rico - 3

Thursday 22nd Aldershot
Deep Sea Adventure - 9
Heroquest - 4

Tuesday 20th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Valeria: Card Kingdoms - First Play!

Monday 19th Simon's
Forbidden Desert - 2
It's a Wonderful World - 2

Sunday 18th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 43
Can't Stop - 25
Railroad Ink - 36
Barenpark - 4
Carcassonne - 10
Sushi Go! - 15
Break the Code - First Play!

Saturday 17th on Board Game Arena
Jump Drive - 11

Thursday 15th Aldershot
Deep Sea Adventure - 8
Heroquest - 3

Tuesday 13th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Tiny Epic Dungeons - 3

Sunday 11th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 42
Railroad Ink - 35
Stella - Dixit Universe - 11
Dragonwood - 12
Via Magica - 11
Azul - 8
Hanabi - 3

Thursday 8th Aldershot
Dream Home - First Play! 
Century: Eastern Wonders - 5
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea - 33

Tuesday 6th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Love Letter - 62
Quacks of Quedlinburg - 5

Sunday 4th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 41
Can't Stop - 24
King of Tokyo - 10
Parks - 12
Burgle Bros - 2

Thursday 1st Aldershot
Heckmeck - 14
Heroquest - 2