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.

3rd September 2023

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

Knarr: A type of Norse wooden ship which was used for trading and exploration.

Knarr the game, can you guess what it's about?

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

​What's in a game?
Board: This is a rectangular, landscape orientated board which depicts what I would imagine is a Viking coastal settlement - which fits with the game's theme.

• Destination spaces: Along the top edge of the board are marked out 'slots' or spaces to place destination cards.
• Reputation track: Sort of in the middle of the board is the reputation track which is a curiously shaped track marked with some symbols.
  During the course of the game, as players progress along this track, it will add reputation points to a players victory points (VPs).
• Viking spaces: Along the bottom edge are slots for 5 Viking cards. Each slot is also colour coded, being; red, yellow, green, blue & purple.
• Score tracker: Running along perimeter of the board is VP tracker that goes from 1-40.

Player board: Each player board (Ship sheet.) comes in a player-colour and is double-sided, displaying a 'normal' and 'advanced' side.
They are unusually shaped (looking a bit like sails) with 3 circular indentations on both the left and right sides which are used to slot tokens. The left side is for recruit or 'crew' tokens and the right for silver bracelet or 'trade' tokens.
Along the top are 3 vertical tracks or columns which will display 1 or more of the game's resources.
Along the bottom, it displays the each player's starting resources.

Cards: Broadly speaking, Knarr uses 2 types of cards, destination cards (which are landscape) and Viking cards.

• Destination cards: The illustrations on these cards depict places or locations, which makes sense given their landscape orientation. Each card also displays its purchasing cost in the top left corner, rewards (if available) in the top right corner while along the bottom edge are 3 columns that match the 3 columns on player boards. These columns may contain resource icons.
  Destination cards are further broken down into 2 types:
  Trading lands: Also known as type A.

Tokens: Knarr makes use of several types of token.

• ​Recruit tokens: These round tokens display Viking helmets and are generally used to recruit Viking cards.
• Silver bracelet tokens: These round tokens depict the aforementioned bracelets and are used for trading.
• Victory point and reputation tokens: There is one each of these in every player colour and they are used to track VPs and reputation on the main board.
• Destiny tokens: This is a fancy name for tokens used to determine a starting player. There is one in every player colour.

Knarr features 2 types of artwork, that which appears on the Viking cards and that which appears on the destination cards.
The Viking cards use a kind of line-art illustration style with high quality illustrations that is clear and colourful with detailed and interesting looking characters.
In slight contrast, an excellent painted art style is used for destination cards. Depicting a variety of vistas and landscapes with evocative artwork using moody, distinct palettes.
All-in-all, Knarr has top notch presentation.

There are a few icons used throughout the game and the optional rules introduce some more but they are mostly self-explanatory or easily understood, I imagine they will be quickly learned.
The game also uses colour-coded icons on the bottom of Viking cards to increase accessibility. It's good to this done and shows that care and thought has been put into the game.

Note: The 'normal' version without variant cards was played.
How's it play?
Setup
Cards: Sort the cards into their 3 types (decks A, B and Viking deck) and shuffle each into face-down stacks.

• Deck A & deck B: Deal 3 cards from each of these decks face-up into 2 rows along their allotted slots at the top of the board.
• Viking deck: Remove cards out of play from the Viking deck per player count as dictated by the rules.
  Then deal 5 cards face-up into the 5 allotted spaced along the bottom of the board.

​Players: Give each player a player board and tracking tokens in their chosen player colour. Also give each player 3 recruit and 3 silver bracelet tokens.

• Player boards: Players should collectively choose which side of their board to use.
• Tracking tokens: Each player should place the score and reputation tokens at the start of their respective tracks.
• Recruit & silver bracelet tokens: Each player should place these tokens on top of their player board. Then 1 of each token should be placed into one of it's respective slots along the side of the player board. Thus they have 1 of each they can use.
• Viking cards: Each player should draw a starting hand of 2 cards from the Viking deck, these must be of different colour. If they match colours, one should be discarded and another drawn until all players have cards with 2 different colours.

First player: Determine a starting player using the destiny tokens as per the rules.

On to play
Players will be playing Viking cards in order to then spend the resources on those cards, this can have a number of results. Viking cards can then be spent to acquire destination cards which will in turn, give them further resources and Reputation/VPs.
Knarr follows a typical turn with the active player acting before play progresses to the player on their left.
A player's turn consists of 2 phases.
Reputation: The active player increases their VP score according to their position on the reputation tracker. This will be 0-5 points.
Action: This is where the bulk of the game takes place and the active player must perform one of the following 2 actions plus they may choose to also perform the bonus trading​ action.

• Recruit: The active player plays a Viking card from their hand into their personal playing area. This will have a number of steps.
  • Columns: When played, all Viking cards must be placed into columns which match their colour. Thus a player may have up to 5 columns.
  • Gain resources: When a Viking card has been placed into a column, all cards in that column are activated. The first card played into a column will obviously only activate itself, but subsequent cards played into a column will activate all cards in that column. The player then gains the resources from the activated cards. This may include:
    Points: An increase to VPs or Reputation.
    Tokens: Gaining recruit or treading tokens, although a player can only have a maximum of 3 of each slotted alongside their player board.
    Cards: Drawing a card blindly from the Viking deck and adding it to their personal area, this does not active the column it is placed into though.
  • Draft Viking card: The active player now drafts 1 of the 5 Viking cards under the main board into their hand. It is drafted from the slot that matches the colour of the card they played. The colour of the card under that slot is not relevant.
    Spend recruit token: Before taking a card from the relevant slot, the active player may spend a recruit token to draft any of the 5 cards.
    Any Viking card taken is immediately replaced.
• Explore: This is the other action the active player can take and involves the following steps.
  • Purchase destination card: The active player may purchase any of the 6 available destination cards by paying its cost. This is done by spending Viking cards of the specified colours as shown in the cost.
    Gain reward: The player gains the resources shown in the top right of the destination card. These are identical to resources gained by activating Viking cards.
    Place destination card: The active player then places the destination card into their personal area and on top of their player board so that the 3 vertical columns line up and extend upwards.

Overall
While Knarr is something of an abstract game but it's also fairly strong thematically.
Players will be recruiting Vikings with specific skills to utilise and then sending to faraway lands to either explore or settle and create trade routes. The game play matches that well.

Gameplay-wise, Knarr sits in a sweet spot of having easily learned mechanics (At its core there are only 2 types of action in Knarr.) while also providing players will some nuanced decisions to make.

Recruiting is likely the most common action a player will take and there will be several considerations to make even though they will only have a choice of 2 cards in their hand at any one time.
Obviously the resources Viking cards provide the player is vital, increasing reputation for example will create a consistent way to generate VPs, gaining tokens will provide flexibility etc but colour is also important.
Creating a large column of a single colour can generate a lot when it's activated provided it is activated. Sometimes however, a player might want to hedge their bets instead though. Building up a column in a single colour will also probably limit a player's choices when it comes to gaining destination cards.
The other area where colour becomes important is when drafting Viking cards. A player may decide to play a card of a certain colour just to draft a card in that colour's slot on the board - although a recruit token may be spent to mitigate this.

Exploration is the other action that a player may select and it comes with it's own choices.
Firstly, the player must spend Viking cards in order to acquire a destination card. This alone can be a bit of a tricky decision as it will probably entail losing cards that have proven to be useful.
Next the player will need to consider what the rewards will be. The instant rewards are pretty straightforward in what they provide but the 3 trading columns are a different kettle of fish.
Similarly to the columns of Viking cards, the columns on the player board and destination cards can be activated to gain their respective resources. However, the resources on the rightmost column are expensive (in that they cost 3 silver bracelet tokens to activate), so theoretically, loading up the leftmost column is the most efficient way to trade for goods but it's likely that the cards won't be so obliging. Once again players will decide how build up the columns and this will be affected by which destination cards are available to draft.

Ultimately, players will need to balance the efficiency of concentrating on a smaller number of columns with need to diversify for the purposes of flexibility. This will require a mix of planning and exploiting opportunities as they arise.

There's not much to fault here, at times I did find it somewhat frustrating that I couldn't draft the Viking cards I wanted but I think sometimes that it's par for the course for a drafting game.
I also feel that perhaps the reputation track and its mechanics are a bit over strong.

Otherwise, Knarr is an accessible, fairly quick to play drafting and engine-building game that presents players will tricky, meaningful decisions.
It also has a strong Viking theme and equally strong style and presentation.
If this appeals to you, then Knarr is worth giving a try.

August's '23's numbers are up compared to July.
Games played went from 35 to 38, however, first plays went from 7 to 10 and while it's quite a lot it's actually only the 3rd highest new plays ever, even so, it's still nearly 1 first play every 3 days!

First plays: 10
Games played: 38

Thursday 31st Aldershot
Kingdomino Origins
Isle of Cats

Tuesday 29th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Bandido
Deep Dive - First Play!
It's a wonderful world

Sunday 27th Board Game Arena
Can't Stop
Loco Momo
Tranquillity
Just One
Wingspan
Bandido

Thursday 24th Aldershot
Fluxx
Scout
Burger Boss

Tuesday 22nd round Simon's
War of The Ring: The One Ring - First Play!

Monday 21st on Board Game Arena
Martian Dice
Can't Stop
Nidavellir
Roll'n Bump
Just One
Railroad Ink
Tranquillity
Color Flush - First Play!

Sunday 20th round Matakishi's - 1st Gaming Extravaganza
Machi Koro 2
Durian
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
Parks
Bandido

Saturday 19th round Matakishi's - 1st Gaming Extravaganza
The Pursuit of Happiness - First Play!
Kingmaker
Point Salad
Machi Koro 2

Sunday 13th Board Game Arena
Can't Stop
​Sushi Go Party
Via Magica
Spots
Just One
Nidavallir
Tranquillity

Sunday 13th The Sovereigns
Parks
Oh Captain - First Play!

Saturday 12th Board Game Arena
Martian Dice
Tranquillity
Bandido

Thursday 10th Simon's
Flash Point: Fire Rescue - First Play!
Dorfromantik - First Play!

Tuesday 8th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Deep Sea Adventure
Codex Naturalis
Kingdomino Origins - First Play!

Sunday 6th Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers
Can't Stop
Roll'n Bump
None Shall Pass
Just One
Railroad Ink
Setup - First Play!

Friday 4th Simon's
Zombicide: Undead or Alive - First Play!

29th August 2023

It's a Tuesday evening which means we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for a evening of gaming.

Is this a thorough and comprehensive look into the lives of penguins.... or is it a push-your-luck game about dodging sharks and eating fish?

What's in a game?
Tokens: There are 160 square card tokens in Deep Dive!

• Depth: Every token has 1 of 5 'depths' as indicated on the back by 1 to 5 dots as well as differing shades of blue (Both on the front and back.): The darker the blue, the deeper the depth.

Meeples: In each of the colours there are 3 differently shaped wooden penguin meeples.

First player token: This oversized irregularly shaped token serves as both a first player marker and on the opposite side a game end tracker.

The tokens are the standard thick card tokens found in board games today. They are study enough and will last unless treated badly.
The meeples are recognisably penguin-shaped and made of wood which makes them pleasantly tactile components.

Despite their small size, the tokens are well illustrated. Pretty much everything looks like what it should look like.
However, I found the choice to use green and yellows colours for food tokens frustrating. While in the photos and under good light, the difference between the 2 colours is pretty obvious, in the less than idea lighting of the pub we first played in, it made differentiating between those colours tricky. Personally, I feel much better colours could have been used.

There's essentially 4 self-explanatory icons and some numbers used in Deep Dive. Players should have no trouble understanding the game.

How's it play?
Setup
Tokens: First, sort all the tokens by their depth, then add/randomly remove tokens from each depth according to player count as per the rules.
Next, flip all tokens face-down, randomly shuffle them and and arrange them by depth with depth 1 at the top and going downwards to depth 5 at the bottom.
Players: Give each player the 3 penguin meeples in their player colour.
First player: Randomly determine a starting player. Give them the first player token which they should keep in their personal area with the 1st player side face-up.

​On to play
In Deep Dive players take on the role of penguins diving for food while avoiding those pesky but deadly predators.
This is done by flipping tokens, resolving the outcome and then if possible, choosing to continue to flip tokens at deeper depths or take what has been flipped.
The game uses a traditional turn order with the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.
During the active player's turn, the following occurs:
Depth: Play usually begins at the shallowest depth and as the player progresses they will go deeper and deeper. The rules below apply at all depths.

• Flip: The active player must flip a face-down token at their current depth according to the following rules.
  • Rock: If the active player has acquired a rock token from a previous turn, they can discard it begin their turn at any depth not just the shallowest.
  • No face-down tokens: If there are no face-down tokens at the current depth, the active player may choose to skip that depth.
  • Some face-up tokens: If there are any face-up tokens at the current depth, the active player may choose to take one of them. This immediately ends their turn.
  • Trapped penguin: If one of the active player's penguin meeples is trapped on a predator token on a particular depth, the active play may skip that depth.
    See below for rules on predators and trapped penguins.
• Resolve: When the active player does flip a token, they must resolve the outcome.
  • Open water: If a open water (Bubbles.) token is revealed, the active player must immediately move down to the next depth and flip a token there.
  • Food/rock: If the revealed token is food or a stone, the active player may choose to:
    Ignore it: In which case, the active player moves down to the next depth.
    Take: If the active player decides to take the food or rock, they resurface and their turn immediately ends.
    More on food below.
  • Predator: If a predator is revealed, The active player must place 1 of their 3 penguin meeples on that predator token, it is now trapped and their turn is over!
    3 trapped penguins: If the active player has just trapped their 3rd penguin on a predator, they now retrieve all 3.
    ​Then they can take 1 face-up food/rock from any 1 of the depths where they had a trapped penguin. Their turn is of course still over.

​Taking food/rocks: When a player takes either of these tokens, the following rules apply.

• Food: When food is taken, the player must place that food in their personal playing area in columns by colour. This is done starting at the top and going downwards
  This means each player will have 3 columns - one each for the 3 colours.
  It is theoretically possible for a player to create a single long column of a single colour but this is not desirable as scoring is done by completed rows of 3 tokens. a completed row must contain a token of each of the 3 colours.

• Rock: As explained above, when a rock is taken, a player can use it in a subsequent turn to dive down to any depth of their choosing.

Next player: Once the active player has finished their turn, play progresses to the player on their left.
​
​Endgame
When all tokens on any depth have been flipped, the game end has been triggered.
Play continues until the first player is reached, upon which they flip the 1st player token over to the last dive side. All players get one last dive and then the game goes to scoring.

• Completed rows: For each completed row (That is a row with all 3 colours.), the player earns the full VPs for all 3 food tokens.
• Incomplete rows: For each incomplete row, the player earns half the VPs for the total of the 1 or 2 tokens in that row.

Overall
Despite its abstractness, the game fits its theme fairly well as you players take on the role of diving penguins!
I've not encountered a push-your-luck game quite like Deep Dive. I've played plenty of games that use dice or cards but I can't think of any that use tokens in this way but it works very well here.

Deep Dive is a good example of a push-your-luck game and there's a clear risk/reward decision mechanic at work: After flipping a token (provided it's not a predator) players will be faced with the decision of taking that token or going deeper which will potentially give them a better reward but also exposes them to the another chance of revealing a predator. The game also employs a classic element of many push-your-luck games where players will be forced to continue when they reveal 'open water.

It's should be noted that mathematically the odds of encountering predators increases as the depth increases - which fits with the risk/reward gameplay.
At depth 1 there are 6 predators tokens out of a total 44 which equates to 13.6% chance of revealing a predator at the game start. At depth 5 there are 11 predators out of 23 tokens which increases it to a 47.8% chance.
It means that if a player gains a stone, it hasn't necessarily made their decisions easier - only changed it! A player can choose to use a stone to go to the deepest depth it they want but the risk is still very high.
Having said that, as play progresses, these odds will change as tokens get revealed over time, allowing a higher level of play to occur where players can observe events and adapt or change tactics.
E.g., if during the course of play 8 predator tokens have been revealed at depth 5 and there's still 9 unrevealed tokens, observant players will know that only 3 predator tokens will encountered in the 9 remaining tiles, giving lower odds of encountering them. As a result players can feel 'safer' going to that depth.

The scoring system also adds some interesting decisions as at times getting a lower value food token of a required colour offers optimal point scoring. This creates asymmetrical scoring objectives between players.

There's not much more to add really. Deep Dive offers both meaningful decisions to take and is a easy to learn game. The rules are very simple and at its core, there's only 4 types of token to think about (Although there are 3 types of food.) and one of those types forces players to dive deeper. The choices a player has are very clear
Along with its theme and brisk playtime, I feel that Deep Dive will have crossover appeal. This can be a good game for casual or less dedicated gamers. it can also be a good filler game.

If I was to be critical I would say despite its quick playtime, it has a relatively lengthy setup: Tokens need to be separated into depths, then turned face-down, then possibly have some added, then shuffled, then have some tokens removed and then play can begin.

It's a minor quibble though and it's well worth it to play this tightly constructed, neat little push-your-luck game.

22nd August 2023

It's a Tuesday evening and we're round Simon's for an evening of games and diversions.

War of the Ring: The Card Game is a bit of a mouthful it's also as the name may suggest a card game version of the War of the Ring board game.
Will this game show its quality or will it be a stinker?

What's in a game?
Cards: Unsurprisingly, there's quite a few cards in the game and broadly speaking, they are broken down into 2 types, Faction cards and Location cards.
Faction cards: These represent a mixture of personalities (such as Sam), items (such as Sting), armies and even events from the story. Most cards have some elements from the list below.

• Scores: Character or army cards might include attack and defence scores for 1 or both of the 2 game's 2 types of conflict. Some cards may also include 'leadership' scores. These are shown along the left edge of a card.
• Paths: Some cards will show when that card can be used in the case of certain characters/cards: E.g., Faramir may not appear early on in the game because he does not appear early on in the story
• Items: In the case of an item, text will show who can use it; only Gandalf can use his staff for example.

The bottom half of each card will also contain text detailing what that individual card does.
Finally, each card will have a relevant, recognisable illustration of its subject matter that takes up the top half of the card.

There are quite a lot of faction cards (120 to be exact.) which in total constitute 4 decks of 30 cards each. 2 decks for each of the game's 2 opposing forces (The Free Peoples & The Shadow.).
​Each of the 4 decks is further subdivided into factions.

• The Free Peoples: The heroes! The Free Peoples consist of the following decks.
  • Aragorn deck: This deck contains the Dunedain and Elven factions.
  • Frodo deck: Dwarves, Rohan, Hobbits and Wizard (Just Gandalf really!) factions are represented here.

Location cards: These oversized cards are also broken down into 2 types; Battlegrounds and Paths.

• Battlegrounds: There are 14 of these cards and they are split evenly into Free Peoples and Shadow battlegrounds.
  As then name suggests, battleground cards represent the sites of various battles that occurred and each is well depicted with a large illustration.
  On the right of each battleground card will show it's defence value and which faction(s) is defending it, as well which faction(s) are attacking it and any special rules. The card's victory point (VP) value is shown in the top left.

Average best sums up the component quality for War of the Ring: The Card Game, which means the cards and tokens are all of a acceptable quality, nothing bad here but nothing to write home (or blog) about really. Unless the components are abused, they should be fine.

However; very good best sums up the quality and style of the artwork used. Fairly colourful, yet moody and evocative of middle-earth, it presents recognisable subjects to anyone familiar with Lord of the Rings.
If I were to be a harsh though, I would say that the art style looks a little 'samey' and similar to art found on a lot of other Lord of the Rings games and merchandising related to the film trilogy (Although characters look nothing like their cinematic counterparts.) but I'm not sure that it's a bad thing,  - it just gives it a consistent presentation will probably appeal to fans of the films and ultimately, I can't fault the presentation.

There's quite a lot of iconography used throughout the game for factions, different flavours of combat and also types of cards, etc.
On top of this, a lot of information is provided via text on the card and the rulebook has a glossary on how the wording works. Players will probably find themselves referring to the glossary a few times early on but it's not a deal-breaker and I'm probably making it sound a lot worse than it is.

Note: The description here is for the 4-player version of the game (Called the trilogy scenario.). 2 & 3 player count games have slightly different rules.

How's it play?
Setup
Location cards:

• Battleground decks: Sort the battleground cards into their 2 types and shuffle each into a face-down deck.
• Path deck: Sort all path cards into their 9 types then create a deck by placing the 3 '9' cards at the bottom then the 3 '8' card on top and so on until eventually the 3 '1's are on the top.

Player setup: War of the Ring: The Card Game is a team based game meaning that it is a 2v2 game. This adds an extra consideration for setup.

• Teams: Players will need to sort themselves into 2 opposing teams.
  On the Free Peoples' team, one player should be the 'Aragorn' player and the other the 'Frodo' player.
  The Shadow players should choose between the 'Witch-king' and 'Saruman'.
• Seating: Ideally players should arrange themselves around the central playing area in alternating order between teams and each player should face their teammate on the opposite side, think like how bridge is played.
• Cards: Sort all the faction cards by type and give each deck to their respective player. All players should shuffle their cards into a face down deck.
  • Draw cards: Each player should draw 7 cards and discard 2 cards (Called cycling here, more on cycling below.).
• First player: For round 1, the Frodo player will be the first player. After this, the first player will change for every round.

Some rules
Before going on to explain how the game plays, it might be an idea to explain some a few of the rules regarding faction cards, specifically, cycling, elimination & forsaking.

• Cycling: Players will frequently be cycling cards. This means they discard a card face-down from their hand to the cycling pile.
  As the name suggests, cards from the cycling deck can eventually be shuffled back into the draw when the draw deck is depleted.
• Elimination: Whenever a player has to eliminate a card, they must discard a card to the elimination pile. Typically, elimination will refer to specific cards. These cards are now out of the game, they cannot come back into play.
  When certain cards are eliminated, they may have actions triggered.
• Forsaking: Sometimes a forsaken action occurs, when this happens a card is placed into the elimination pile.
  However, unlike elimination, when a card must be forsaken, it can be discarded from the players hand OR from any faction card in play OR blindly from the top of the players draw deck.
  As with eliminations, some cards will trigger actions when forsaken, even when forsaken blindly from the deck!

• Multiple location cards: Dependant on circumstance, it is possible that multiple battleground cards will be active at the same time. It's also possible to activate and  complete' more than one path card in a round.
  Additionally, it is also possible to 're-activate' battleground cards that have already been completed.

Action step: This is where the majority of gameplay takes place. In turn order, each player takes an action until all players have consecutively passed. The action step ends when this occurs.
Actions include:

• Cycle card: The active player may spend an action to cycle a card.
• Move card: The active player may move a card from their reserve to a location card with the following restrictions.
  • A card cannot be moved in the round it is played.
  • A card cannot be moved to a location it could not be played to.
• Play card: The active play may play a card from their hand. When doing so, they must cycle another card.
  Taking restrictions into account, a card may be played to one of potentially several spots. This could be a battleground, path or reserve.
  Item cards: These are played on characters and will stay with them.
  Event cards: These are resolved immediately and then eliminated.
  A card may have multiple actions depending on where it's placed. These actions may be resolved now or later in the round accordingly.
  • Battleground location: A card may be played to a battleground, provided its faction matches one of the factions involved in the battle.
  • Path location: Provided the card has a path number that matches the current path card, it can be played to that path.
    Note; army cards cannot be played to paths.
  • Reserve: A card can be played to the player's reserve area.
• Use action: The active player may resolve an action to resolve the text on a card in play.
  The actions on a card may differ depending on where it has been played to.
• Use ring token: The active player may flip their ring token to its used side to draw 2 cards.
• Winnow: The active player may eliminate 2 cards in order to draw 1 more.
• Pass: The active player may choose to pass, provided 1 of the 2 following conditions are met.
  Unlike many other games, when a player passes, they are not out of play and may have the opportunity to ! See below for more on this.
  • Carryover limit: each player has a carryover limit which starts at 2. When a player's hand is equal to or less than their carryover limit, they may pass as their action.
  • Less cards: If the active player has less cards than all other players, they may choose to pass.
• End of action step: When all players have consecutively passed, then this step is over.
  Thus if one player passes and others do not, then that passing player will have the opportunity to take an action when it comes back to their turn again or they may pass again.

Combat step: Broadly speaking combat for battlegrounds and paths work in a similar manner.

• Defender: Determine who is the defender and who is the attacker.
  Path: The Free Peoples side is always the defender in path locations and thus the Shadow side is always the attacker.
  Battleground: If the battleground location is a Free Peoples location, then The Free Peoples side is the defender and the converse is true if its' a Shadow location.
• Compare scores: Compare the total value of the attacker's attack icons to the total value of the defender's defence icons.
  If the attacker has the higher value they win, otherwise the defender wins (defender always wins ties).
  Essentially, the attacking icons are cancelled out by the defending icons until they are all cancelled out or cannot be cancelled out. This can be tracked using the combat tokens.
• Aftermath: Once combat has been resolved, all attacking cards are eliminated. Defending cards are only eliminated if they had to be used to to defend, thus, if defence icons on defending faction cards were not needed to cancel out attacking icons, then those cards are cycled, not eliminated.
• Spoils of war: To the victor go the spoils, in this case that means location cards which is slightly different depending on whether it's a battleground or path.
  Battleground: The battleground location card goes to whichever side wins its combat, it will be worth the VPs shown in the top left corner.
  Path: If The Free Peoples win a path card, they gain the VPs displayed in the top left corner of the card. If the Shadow players win the card, their side gets VPs equal to the number of corruption tokens placed on it, these are in essence uncancelled attack icons.

​Victory check step: Once all combat has been resolved, both sides should total and compare their current VPs. If one side is beating the other side's score by 10 or more VPs, then that side immediately wins!
Draw step: The Free Peoples players draw 3 cards while the Shadow players draw 4! Those cheating bad guys!

• New round: The first for the next round should be selected as per the turn order tracker.

​Endgame
Provided the game does not end during the victory check step (It's generally unlikely the game will end this way.), then it will end when combat on the 9th and final path card has been resolved.
Each side scores as per follows:

• Battleground: Each side scores the displayed VPs from the battlegrounds they won.
• Paths: These score differently for each side.
  Free peoples: The Free Peoples gain the listed VPs for each path card they won.
  Shadow: Shadow players score 1VP for each corruption token they placed on a path card that they won. VPs listed on path cards are worth 0 to the Shadow players.
• Corruption tokens: The Shadow players gain 1VP for each other corruption token they earned (other than those on path cards).
• Ring tokens: Each unused ring token at the game end now earns 1VP for its respective side.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.
In the case of a tie, the Shadow side wins! Definitely cheating bad guys!

Overall
War of the Ring: The Card Game feels very appropriate thematically. As with the books, the gameplay is split between the large events and battles while the fellowship makes it's way to Mount Doom through its paths.

It's also quite challenging and at it's heart, this is a auctioning/bidding game.
The cards with their attack and defence values represent bids, winning the auction means winning the battle and the card is the prize.
Where it gets interesting through, is in the mechanics going on around it.

Players are constantly forced into making difficult, meaningful decisions - every time a cards is played, another must be cycled. Players will need to continually assess which cards they can discard and since every card is good, it's not easy.

Battles compound this, every card a player contributes to an attack will be gone from the game afterwards; more hard decisions to make! Even defending cards will invariably be eliminated.
This also has the consequence of making the 'pass' action actually a powerful move.
It might seem counterintuitive but the earlier a player can choose pass, the better it is for them. In many games passing means a player is out the running. Here it means a player can potentially sit back and watch what their opponents are committing to a combat before they have to do so themselves.

Another element to consider is teamwork. Each deck will have its own strengths and weaknesses. Team mates will need to try and coordinate their actions to exploit their strengths and mitigate their vulnerabilities.
There is no secret communication at the table here and chat is open so everyone can hear it. Anything said to a teammate is heard by all.
I guess it means communication between allies will be limited to meaningful eyebrow waggles.

Players must also balance the need to win current conflicts but also retain cards for future battles as over time their options are whittled away. Knowing what to keep for what comes later can be a real game changer. E.g., no matter how powerful a personality is, if can't be played on the current or upcoming path cards, its usefulness becomes somewhat limited.

This ties in with a criticism I have: There were several times during the game where I felt I just could not counter or match the cards played by an opposing player.
I'm not sure if this was down to my opponent(s) knowing the game better and knowing what to keep in hand or sometimes luck playing a bit too much of a role.
Either way it made for a bit of a frustrating experience.
This definitely seems like a game that needs several playthroughs in order to grasp the nuances.

Additionally; we played the game 4-player and the general consensus seems to be that this is the best player count for it.

There's a lot of direct interaction and conflict between players in this game and some people will find that stressful or off putting which means they probably won't get on with this game but if you do like that sort of thing, then here's a lot to like in War of the Ring: The Card Game and it's definitely work a look. Especially if you've got 3 reliable friends who will play it with you several times.

21st August 2023

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

​Flip those cards! Steal 'em or give 'em away in Color Flush, a lightweight set-collecting card game.

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

What's in a game?
Cards: Color Flush consists of a deck of 50 cards. They are somewhat elongated and narrow compared to typical playing card proportions. All cards are double-sided and display one of several colours each side, generally they will be 2 different colours but the are cards that the same colour on both sides.

Well, that's it for components!

While there's no artwork to speak of on any of the cards, the colours used are generally bright and vibrant, they also display patterns for each colour which have no doubt been included to improve accessibility.

There are also no icons either. All the game's information is related through colours and the game is flush with those (SIC) (Sorry.).

How's it play?
Setup
Cards: Shuffle all the cards into a deck, there is no back or front, so no face-down or face-up cards.
Deal 7 cards to each player; each player should make sure NOT TO LOOK at the other side of their cards, they should only know the colours of the sides of the cards facing them.
The remaining cards become the draw pile.
First Player: Determine a starting player.

Onto to play
In Color Flush, the objective is to be the first player to have all the cards in their hand (facing them) with the same colour.
Color Flush follows a traditional turn order with the active player completing their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.

On their turn, the active player must perform the 3 actions below, however they can complete those actions in any order they see fit.
Flip: The active player flips one of the cards in their hand to the other side.
Give: Without flipping it, the active player must either give a card to another player or puts it on the draw pile.
Take: The active player must take a card, either from an opponent or from the draw pile and adds it to their hand without flipping it.
Other rules: There are some other rules that also apply.

• Black cards: If a player gains a black card into their hand by any means, then they must immediately flip their entire hand!
• White cards: If a player has any white cards in their hand, those cards are considered wild and can be of any colour,
• Hand size: All players have hand sizes limited to between 4 and 10 cards. This cannot be altered. E.g., if a player has 4 cards in their hand, then a card cannot be taken from them because it would take their hand size down to 3.

End of turn: Once the active player has completed their 3 actions, play progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
The moment any player has cards of only 1 colour in their hand, they immediately win the game.​

Overall
Color Flush is obviously a very abstract game with no attempt to attach a theme to the set-collecting mechanics.
I'm fine with this but I know some people will bounce off this.

From the brevity of the write-up, it's easy to see that Color Flush is a very lightweight game which offers some straightforward if unpredictable mechanics. Players have 3 actions they must perform, the only variation is in the order in which they do so.

This is a game that mixes memory gameplay with a degree of luck: When collecting their set, players will need to remember both what cards they've given or had taken away as well as what on the other side of cards. Then use this information to try and complete a set as quickly as possible. It means paying attention to what other players are doing.
Of course players also have to deal with drawing cards they don't need and particularly, the occasional black card which will quite figuratively change everything!

I can't really fault Color Flush; it's an accessible game with a quick playtime but for my tastes it's a bit too light. Coupled with the randomness of frequently losing cards (Which may or may not be part of the set you're trying collect.) or having your entire hand switched made for a experience frustrating more than fun or satisfying.

Not one for me but perhaps a game that could be considered for younger players or as an entry level game or maybe a party game.

21st August 2023

It's Monday and we're deep into a gaming weekend at Matakishi's and the game of the hour is The Pursuit of Happiness.

Someone once said 'Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.', but in The Pursuit of Happiness, a worker placement game all about your life; it's definitely​ a goal!

Note: The version of the game shown in the photos is the from the 'big box' which have a number of expansions incorporated into it, which add extra card tracks and actions. Also being used are the upgraded deluxe components as well as (I think) the neoprene playmat. 

What's in a game?
​Board: This is a busy looking board packed with a lot of card rows and spaces, all of which combine to display quite a lot of information.

• Card rows: The left half of the board displays a number of rows of card tracks with 4 spaces each.
  Core game: The first 4 tracks which are from the core game are; Project, Item-Activity, Job & Partner.
  Extra tracks: These are Friend, Experience & Community.
• Action spaces: The right hand side lists the game's 12 'actions', 9 of which are from the core game with the additional 3 coming from the expansions.
  Core actions: Study, Play, Interact, Take Project, Spend, Temp Job, Get Job, Start Relationship & Overtime.
  Extra actions: Plan Experience, Dream & Start Friendship are extra actions.
  Each action also has its own unique, humorous and cartoony illustration. 
• Trackers: The board also has a round tracker as well as trackers for stress, rest & time spent, popularity and short term happiness.
  ​A score tracker (Or long term happiness.) runs the perimeter of the board.

The board is very colourful but this is more than decoration, as the actions are colour coded to the card rows. You will see the Take Project action space is the same colour as the Projects card row and so on.

Cards: The Pursuit of Happiness makes use of a lot of different types of cards broken up into decks which correspond with the rows on the board and are also colour coded accordingly.
Thus, there are project cards, item-activity, job and partner cards.
​More on these later.
​Some of the card types are double-sided and come with a cover to keep them hidden during play.
Generally, cards feature a illustration along the top and tend to feature cartoonish artwork depicting their subject matter while the middle and lower parts given over to displaying game information.
As a rule, in some manner or other, cards tend to have a cost associated with acquiring or using them and there's also a reward for paying the cost. Some types of card will also require paying an upkeep to maintain - this may be in the form of resources or hourglasses. Upkeeps also generate rewards as well.
Additionally, there are also Child Trait and Life Goal cards. These function differently.

The oversized plastic components are all well made; chunky, sturdy and well shaped, they're colourful and pleasantly tactile. The hourglasses in particular are quite huge.
Obviously these are the deluxe components and the base game comes with standard card tokens which are also fairly colourful and uniquely shaped for their individual types. I.e., the creativity tokens are shaped like 2d light bulbs and so on.

The Pursuit of Happiness uses a humorous and cartoony art style, interestingly this is further broken down into 2 further styles.
The cards all feature bespoke colourful cartoony illustrations of their subject matter - e.g., a car for the car etc.
However the board uses a more abstract stickman style against the brightly colour coded backgrounds to represent the game's actions. It's a bit of a curious mix of styles but it works well enough. i like it and it makes the game look good and gives it a good table presence.

There's nearly a dozen icons used in the game, they are mostly self explanatory and will be able to quickly learn them. Players should not have any issues understanding the game.

Note: For this game overview I'm going to limit discussion to the core game. There are numerous expansions for The Pursuit of Happiness and we've played some of them. Broadly speaking they mechanically tend to function in the same way.

How's it play?
Setup
​Board: Put the board into the central playing area.

• Rounds: Place the round marker on round 1 on the round tracker.
• Unavailable actions: Place these tokens on to the Get Job, Overtime and Start Relationship action spaces.
• Cards: Sort the cards into their types, shuffle each into a face down deck and place them adjacent to their pertinent card rows on the board. Since the the Job and Partner cards are double-sided, their respective card covers should be placed on top of their decks to hide the cards.
  • Project and item-activity cards: Deal 4 cards from each deck on to their card rows.
    Life goal cards: Deal a number of Life Goal cards equal to the player count and place them adjacent to the board face-up.
    These provide extra scoring opportunities.
    ​Job and partner cards: While these cards are not placed in the game during setup and are not used during 1st round of the game. They come in to play during subsequent rounds and they are managed as follows.
    Firstly, these 2 types of card are always dealt from the bottom of their decks.
    Job cards: It does not matter which side of a job card is displayed, both side are functionally identical. 
    Partner cards: As with job cards, both sides of partner cards only differ cosmetically. 

Players: Give each player the tokens in their player colour.

• Hourglasses: Players start the game with only 6 of their 9 hourglass tokens.
• Trackers: These should placed on their relevant spaces on the following tracks:
  Long term happiness.
  Short term happiness.
  Stress.
• Child traits: Shuffle the child trait cards into a face-down deck and deal 2 to each player.
  All players should keep 1 and discard the other out of play.
  These cards determine the player's starting resources and also provides each of them a unique ability they can use.

First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
The Pursuit of Happiness is played over 8 rounds and each round represents a different stage of life, starting with being a teenager and going all the way through to old age.
Each round round contains 4 phases, the bulk of gameplay takes place during the Actions phase and in this regard the game uses a typical turn structure with the active player completing their action and play then progressing to the player on their left.
The core mechanic in The Pursuit of Happiness involves acquiring cards and then using them. This will generally involve paying to use but will then provide rewards. Rewards may be any of a number of things, money or the 3 other resources, short term happiness, stress or even long term happiness which equates to VPs.

Slots: Before continuing to how the phases play, 'slots' need to be explained'.
Each player has 3 slots in their personal area and every 'active' Project, Job or Partner cards they acquire in any combination fills 1 of those 3 slots.
If a player has more than 3 of those card types active at the same time, every card in excess of the 3 slots causes the player to lose stress. That's the cost for 'burning the candle at both ends'!
The phases are played out as follows:

• Preparation phase: Preparation for round 1 occurs as part of setup. But from round 2 this phase is resolved. Several events occur during the preparation phase.
  • Game end: Check to see game's end conditions have been met. See below for more info on this.
  • Rounds: As the game progresses through its rounds, certain actions become available and unavailable.
    Round 2: Jobs, partners and overtime become available.
    Round 6 onwards: From round 6 onwards, the players will be in old-age, this will mean gaining stress! 3 stress for round 6 and up all they way to 9 stress for round 8!
    Overtime becomes unavailable in old age.
    
  • Hourglasses: Each player gains hourglasses according to their position on the stress track.
• Upkeep phase: Many elements of the game have ongoing effects and/or costs/upkeeps. This may include, time or money or anything else. These are all managed in this phase.
  If a player cannot or does not want to pay an upkeep, the card in question is discarded out of play and they gain stress and lose short term happiness.
• ​Action phase: This is where the meat of the game takes place and players now take turn placing their hourglasses, triggering the actions for those spaces.
  It should be noted that if a player places more than 1 hourglass on to a board space, it increases their stress on its tracker. This restriction does not affect cards.
  There are 10 main actions and they work as follows:
  • Study: Placing an hourglass on this space earns 3 knowledge for the active player
  • Play: This earns 3 creativity.
  • Interact: Finally, this space earns 3 influence.
  • Take project: Placing an hourglass here allows the active player to draft one of the available project cards. There are 3 types of project card but all project cards have a associated cost and reward in some manner or other.
    Normal project: A normal project will have several 'stages'. When one is taken, the active player must pay the cost for stage 1 and they also earn the stage 1 reward. A black cube is used to track the progress through a project.
    The player may subsequently spend actions later to place hourglasses directly on to the project card, allowing them to pay to work through all the later stages, gain those rewards and ultimately complete the project. This can be achieved over multiple rounds.
    Eventually players will have completed all stages on a project card and it will no longer be considered active for the purpose of filling 'slots'.
    Single round projects: Like normal project cards, these ones have stages or more accurately levels in this case.
    When the active player takes one of these project cards, they pay as they normally would but these cards are discarded at the end of the round, thus the player only gets 1 opportunity to buy it's rewards. Again; use black cubes to track which level was bought.
    Group projects: Like single round projects, group projects only last for 1 round. Unlike the other 2 types of project, these do not have stages, instead they have 'areas'.
    Each area has its own cost and reward and when it is acquired, the active player can put the hourglass used to acquire it on to any of those areas, paying the cost to gain the reward.
    Using later actions the active player may chose to place more hourglasses on to other areas to pay the cost for their reward.
    Furthermore, other players (in their own turns) may also place hourglasses on another player's group project to pay for it's benefit.
    When all the areas on a group project have been completed, that group project is also considered completed. Players who contributed towards the completion will later earn additional rewards according to how much they contributed.
  • Spend: The spend action allows the active player to take a item-activity card. Like a project card, a item-activity card has stages or levels and players can choose which level to 'buy' the card at and gain the relevant reward.
    Item card: When the active player buys a stage of a item card, it cannot be advanced any further. Additionally, some item cards also have upkeeps that must be paid for in later upkeep phases.
    Activity card: These can be paid for like item cards but differently, they can be upgraded to later stages with further actions.
  • Temp Job: Not to be confused with the Job action, this action allows the active player to gain 3 money.
  • Get job: This action allows the active player to take a job card (from the 2nd round onwards) and put into one of their slots. Since they are double-sided, they can choose either side which will have different job titles. Jobs also have types which is significant for promotions.
    When the active player acquires a job card they must pay the recruitment cost and gain the recruitment reward. Additionally, jobs will have a upkeep cost but will provide a upkeep reward. Typically the upkeep cost will include hourglasses (Time at work.) and reward money (Wages.).
    Promotion: Each job has a 'level' of 1-3 and a player can use a hourglass to take the promotion action, this allows them to gain a job of a higher level and the same type.  This is done by taking another available card from the card row. Higher level jobs have more expensive upkeeps but also provide better rewards.
    ​Retirement: When a player reaches level 3 in a job, they can opt to advance to retirement. This essentially ends the job which will no longer have an upkeep but will also pay a pension.
  • Start relationship: Placing a hourglass here allows the active player to take a partner card. They can can use either side as they differ only in identity of the character in the relationship.
    Like other cards, partner card have stages or levels which can be moved through and represent the player's commitment to the relationship, going from dating all the way to raising a family.
    Partner cards have both a upkeep cost and a requirement. Requirements do not need to be 'paid' but the player must have the necessary resources available.
  • Overtime: In certain rounds, overtime will become available to player. By placing an hourglass on the overtime space, the active player may gain 2 more, this is a net gain of 1. Additionally, they must increase their stress on the track.
  • Rest: The opposite of overtime, now that's more like it! The active player may put as many hourglasses here as they want without increasing stress and in fact: every hourglass placed here will lower stress.
    ​More on how stress works below.
• Resolution phase: Once all players have placed all their hourglasses, the resolution phase occurs, this can differ from round to round.
  • First player: The first player for the following round becomes whoever is furthest along the short term happiness tracker.
  • Reset short term happiness: Joy can be all too fleeting and everyone's position on the short term happiness tracker is reset to 0.
  • Group projects: All rewards from group projects are distributed and the group project card is removed from play.
  • Single round projects: These cards are removed from play.
  • Remove hourglasses: All hourglasses are removed from the board and personal playing areas.

Other rules: Here are some of the rules not covered above.
Short term happiness: As well as determining the first player in the following round, a player's position on the short term happiness tracker will affect the costs they pay, positive happiness gives them a discount while negative does the opposite.
Players may also pay short term happiness to discard any number of cards on a card row and refill them
Stress: The stress track consists of 7 differently bands​ with several spaces in most bands and 15 spaces across all bands.
This is a very important tracker. Not only does it determine how many hourglasses a player receives at the start of a round, it also dictates when they shuffle off this mortal coil!
Certain actions will increase stress which moves a player's marker towards the 'red' spaces, this is bad because it will lose them hourglasses, if the marker is moved all the way off the board then the player has met their end and they are eliminated from the game.
Actions that move the marker into the 'green' spaces are good, it provides the player extra hourglasses and longevity. Here's the thing though, a player cannot move bands when decreasing their stress unless they gain a specific reward called Good Health!
Just like real life, Good Health is very good thing and being able to move bands is important. Remember that in old age, players automatically gain 3, then 6, then finally 9 stress. What this means is; if a player hasn't gained good health by the end of round 7, they are guaranteed dying at the start of round 8! Ouch!

Right, I think that's a broad explanation for the rules.

Endgame
Play continues until all players have died - which is a bit of a sobering thought! This will usually occur during the preparation phase when players deal with ridiculous amounts of stress!
Players then count their finishing VPs which comes from 3 sources.

• Long term happiness: These count as VPs.
• Resources: 1 VP is earned from each set of 5 of each of the games resources.
  
• Life goals: Players check to see if they've met any of the criteria on the life goal cards, earning VPs as directed by those cards.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
The Pursuit of Happiness is all about the use of hourglasses, time and the passage of a lifetime.
Players will find themselves quite figuratively spending time at work which will provide money which will allow them buy stuff. Get into a relationship? Raise a family? These require more time.
Between this and having a job, half of your hourglasses will used upkeeping these two! If you ever wondered. 'Where did it all go?' Now you know!
As you might have guessed, The Pursuit of Happiness is a very thematically appropriate game.

While the game is I'd say 'mid-weight' mechanically (At a basic level it's a worker placement game that allows players to gain extra places to use from acquiring cards.). There's quite a lot going on and equally a lot to remember. I wouldn't call it fiddly but it probably take a couple of playthroughs to get a handle on everything.
There's some unique elements of course such as the short term happiness track which something that players will need to keep an eye on and manage as well as the stress track. Both of which can significantly influence the game.

One thing I will note about gameplay related to the stress track, it's how rare cards that grant 'good health' are and how infrequently they appear. I don't think we ever saw more than 1 or perhaps 2 during any single game.
Whoever manages to gain that good health will find themselves in a good position gameplay wise as gaining it and consequently being able to shift into a different band on the stress tracker is a strong play, in fact an almost game winning play as it can give that player and entire extra round.
I feel that cards with cards with good health perhaps could have been a bit more common and other players may well need to remember to use short term happiness to rinse through the decks looking for those cards.

Gameplay wise, The Pursuit of Happiness is about the most optimal placement of hourglasses and management of resources.
Things like project and item-activity cards will when fully maxed out give players VPs but they are also useful for changing 1 kind of resource into another which can be used else where. This lends the game a bit of a engine-building aspect, albeit a fleeting one, since cards can generally only be used a couple of times before being 'completed'. Players will always be looking for the next opportunity to exploit.
​
If I were to be a bit harsh, I would say that The Pursuit of Happiness a bit overlong particularly at higher player counts and that the gameplay is little average and is pretty standard stuff mechanically.
Where it excels though, is in a added storytelling angle the game creates. As a player progress through the rounds (and the years), they'll find themselves creating a bit of story during their playthrough as they acquire cards that add to that story. Did they get a job, what hobbies did they have and so on?
It gives the game a great deal of charm

The result of this is that The Pursuit of Happiness provides a bit of unique game experience and one to definitely give a try.

13th August 2023

It's Sunday lunchtime and that means we're at The Sovereigns in Woking for some gaming diversions.

Being a brave adventurer comes with its risks and drawbacks, like for example; being trapped out at sea in a sea monster's mysterious cave lair.
Luckily, being the industrious adventurers that you are, the dangerous situation you all find yourselves in won't stop any of you from trying to screw over your companions for cold hard cash in this bluffing card game.

What's in a game?
Captain's bottle: This is an actual message in a bottle, it's not a glass bottle and fortunately has very little chance of breaking. Since we never pulled the message out, we've go no idea what it says?

Adventurer sheets: This is a bit of a misnomer to call them 'sheets' as they are fairly chunky and sturdy double sided tiles.
Each 'sheet' represents a individual character on these double-sided tiles. One side has the character in a 'explorer' role, while the other shows them in the 'captain' role.

• Explorer: The explorer side of a adventurer sheet shows a character portrait and their unique special move below it. Most of the tile's space is given over to showing a breakdown of most of cards that appear in the deck - although I'm sure it doesn't show the purses (which have no action).

Cards: There are 7 types of cards in Oh Captain.
4 types have actions in game associated with them. These are the Grappling Hooks, Lanterns, Lizards and Pistols.
Purses are worth gold while Nukha Eggs are essentially booby traps.
Finally. there's a Nomads' Arrival card which triggers the game end.

Tokens: Two types of card tokens are used in the game.

• Gold coins: These round tokens obviously depict some kind of gold coin.

Card dispenser: This neat looking component is a card holder constructed out of thick card and used to hold the game's deck. Thematically, it depicts the game's mysterious but also item laden cave lair.

Component quality is good throughout Oh Captain. The tiles, tokens and card dispenser are all made of suitably thick card and feel nicely robust. Arguably the gold coin tokens are typical for what you'd expect for gold coins, which means they're not bad but average and completely acceptable.
The cards have a laminated feel to them while their back have gold foil finish.
The bottle looks great and is transparent acrylic, it doesn't feel like it would break unless someone purposely tried to do so.

Oh Captain has great presentation. Artwork displayed on the adventurer sheets and cards in particular is clear, colourful and does a good job of portraying the exotic location the game takes place in.
The card dispenser, while unnecessary adds a nice touch to the game and the same is true of the captain's bottle.
It all adds up to make Oh Captain a pretty looking game.

There are only a handful of actions in the game, consequently there aren't too many icons to remember and the items/cards they're associated with are self explanatory, well, except for the lizard, since when do lizards steal money?
anyway, other than the lizard, everything straightforward and easy to understand.

How's it play?
Setup
Players: Players carry out the following set up.

• Captain: Randomly determine who will be the captain at the start of the game. All other players will be explorers.
  Give the captain the captain's bottle and 5 gold.
  Give all explorers 3 gold each.
  Then give 1 Purse card each explorer, this should begin the game face-down. The remaining purse cards are not used in the game.
• Roles: Starting with the captain each player chooses an adventurer sheet.
  Each player then should place their sheet in front of them, with the pertinent side up.
• Cards: First remove the Nomads' Arrival card and set it aside.
  • Next, shuffle the deck of cards and draw 3 cards into a face-down stack, then add the Nomads' Arrival card also face-down, creating a 4 card stack.
  • Shuffle this stack and place it at the bottom of the dispenser, thus the Nomad's Arrival will be one of the last 4 cards.
  • Shuffle the remaining cards and place them on top of the stack of 4 cards in the dispenser.
• Discard pile: Finally, draw 3 cards from the stack and place them underneath the captain's bottle to form the beginnings of the discard pile.
  The captain is free to look at the cards in the discard pile.
• First player: The player to the left of the captain becomes the first player. Give that player the card dispenser.

On to play
Oh Captain uses a more-or-less typical turn order with the active player resolving their action before play moves to the player on their left, except if it's the captain, the captain does not get turns! They can potentially act in other player's turns but are skipped as active player instead!
The active player performs the following phases.
Mutiny.... or not: If at the start their turn, the active player has more coins than the captain, they can choose to mutiny.... or not!

• Mutiny: If the active player does mutiny, they take the bottle along with the 3 cards into their personal area. They also take 1 gold from the general supply.
  The player's turn then immediately ends.
• Loyal.... for now: If the active player chooses not to mutiny (or cannot because they do not have coins), then they pledge their loyalty to the captain.
  This is not just words though and they must pay 1 coin to the captain!
  The active player must now explore.

Exploring: The active player now draws 1 card from the dispenser and keeping it hidden, looks at it. they should keep it face-down.
They must now offer to sell it to the captain for 1 coin.

• Sell card: When selling the card they just drew to the captain, the active player must tell the captain what type of card it is - which will be 1 of the 4 action cards; grappling hook, lantern, lizard or pistol.
  However, the active player can choose to lie about what kind of card it is and in fact, if they drew a Nukha Egg, they must lie about what the card is, they can never offer to sell an egg.
• Captain's choice: The captain has the choice to buy the card or not.
  • No sell: If the captain chooses not to buy the card, then the game proceeds to the active player's action phase.
  • I'd buy that for a coin: If the captain chooses to buy the card, the following occurs:
    • Payout: The captain gives the active player 1 coin and takes the card.
    • Reveal card: The captain now reveals the card and places it face-up in their personal area.
      • Lie: If the active player was lying, then nothing further occurs. The turn is over and play progresses to the player to the left of the current active player.
      • Truth: If the card is what the active player said it was, then the captain immediately resolves the card's action and then the turn is over. Play progresses to the player to the left of the current active player.
        More on card actions below.
• Action phase: If the captain chose not to buy the card, then the active player must use the declared card's action. The card should not be revealed and the active player cannot use the action that would come from a different card.
  I.e., regardless of whatever the card might be, if the active player told the captain it was a Pistol, they must perform the pistol action.
  Actions: When performing an action, remember the card is not revealed and the active player can must target another explorer, they cannot target the captain (It's good to be the captain!).
• Challenge: Before resolving the action, the player who was targeted by it can challenge the action. When this occurs, the active player must reveal the card (Cards are only revealed in this phase when challenged.) and the following occurs.
  • Lie: If the active player was lying about what the card was, then they must pay a coin to the targeted player and their turn is over.
  • Truth: If the active player was telling the truth, the targeted player must pay a coin to them and the card's action is still resolved.
• Resolving actions: The 4 actions are:
  Grappling hook: Take a card from the targeted player.
  Lantern: Reveal a face-down card in the targeted player's personal area.
  Lizards: Take a coin from the targeted player.
  ​Pistol: Destroy a card in the targeted player's personal area.
  Nukha egg: No effect - although since a Nukha Egg cannot be declared as an action, it can never have the possibility of having an effect?
• Next turn: Once the action for the round has been resolved, the active player's turn is over and play progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
Play continues until an explorer draws the Nomads' Arrival card, in which case the explorer reveals it and the game immediately ends, players now reveal all the cards in their personal area and the game goes to scoring.

Majority
Before final scoring, majority needs to be determined for Grappling Hooks, Lizards and Pistols.
Basically; whoever has the most cards of each type (ties do not count) gains the majority token that corresponds to it.

Players then total all their gold coins, this comes from:

• Gold coins.
• Lantern cards (worth 2 or 3 gold each).
• Majority tokens (worth 4 gold each).

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
​Thematically, Oh Captain is a bit left field; a bluffing game about shipwrecked adventurers trapped in a sea cave who decide - while exploring - to try and steal valuables from and out do each other as they wait for their possible rescue?
It's definitely a bit of a stretch for a bluffing game!

Minor quibble aside, how does Oh Captain fare mechanically? fairly strongly I feel albeit with a flaw.
Like pretty much all games based on bluffing, this is as much about playing the players as it is about playing the game and depending on whether a player is the captain, active explorer or other explorer there's 3 sets of conundrums to consider.

If an explorer doesn't mutiny, they have to draw a card and then consider their options. The mechanic that allows the explorer to potentially sell it to the captain adds an extra winkle here.
When declaring what the item is (or what the explorers says it is) the active player has to try and consider whether the captain will want it or not. If the captain might want a pistol, declaring it a pistol might get the captain to buy. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on whether the active player wants to use a pistol or not and if they would prefer a gold coin for it. Generally, getting cash it good!
Additionally, the active player also has to think about how they would use the card if the captain doesn't want it. Saying it's a lizard in the hope the captain doesn't want it is no god if the active has no need for it themselves.
So sometimes the player will need to lie to try just to try and get the card they want or need and sometimes it'll just be dropped into their hand and of course, there's the Nukha Egg that forces players to lie.

Challenging is another element to think about, when an explorer is targeted by the active player, they'll need to consider whether it's a bluff and challenge it, the outcome for getting it wrong can be costly. As there's only 5 of the Grappling Hook, Lizard and Pistol and 7 Lanterns, there's definitely a slight element of card counting that can be used but since not all cards will be revealed (And 3 have been removed from the game.), there's also some imperfect knowledge at work too, meaning there's generally always a slight gamble when challenging.

The dilemma faced by the captain is a little different, since they don't get a turn, they can only act in other players' turns by buying and using their cards! This can be useful since potentially, the captain could get a lot of actions but there's a cost to this though and if another player lies, then the captain loses money for nothing.
Thus the captain will need to calculate whether the card's action is worth 1 gold to use - provided it is what the active player says it is.

This is where we come to what I feel is a bit of a flaw in the game: As captain, I never felt motivated to needing to buy a card offered to me and generally ended up refusing them..
Take the Lizard card for example, the captain could pay 1 gold to use it, but all it does is allow the captain to steal 1 gold from another player. So ultimately, the captain gains zero benefit from it, sure if the captain feels another player is close to mutiny, it can be employed as a denial strategy but it also gift a coin to another player. All the captain is doing is shifting coins around the other players. This is all provided, it really was a Lizard, otherwise it's just a loss of a coin.
Or the Pistol; the captain could pay a coin to use it to destroy card or just let the active player use it to destroy a card instead.
Why waste a coin to destroy a card?
It might not be the card the captain would want destroyed but a card will be destroyed regardless unless of course it is challenged and proves to be a lie - in which case the captain was wise to not buy it.

I found it quite likely I was being lied to when I bought cards which is mostly why I just stopped buying them altogether - it just wasn't worth the risk.
In a 4-player game, the captain will gain 3 coins per round and if other players aren't gaining at least that many coins per round, they'll never catch up. So why should the captain spend coins for anything?
This is compounded by the rule that prevents explorers targeting captains with cards, I understand why as everyone would pick on the captain but it's even more reason not to buy a card as leaving it with the explorers means they'll just end up attacking and stealing from each other!

It's not entirely 100% the case that it'll go down that way as it's likely that other players will get the majority tokens which would be a 4-coin swing but I feel, unless 1 player gains 2 of them, it won't be enough.

It means that it's generally a no-brainer to just not buy cards and no-brainers are bad because they are the opposite of meaningful decisions - which is bad.

It's a bit of a shame as otherwise Oh Captain is a very nicely presented, fun game to play if bluffing games are your thing.