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.

• ​​Completion tokens: These round tokens display the International Rescue logo and are used to track progress during a mission.
  

The component quality throughout Thunderbirds Danger Zone is average, that is to say it is the quality we've come to accept from modern games which means pretty good. The cards feel OK and the tokens seem sturdy enough. Nothing bad here.

For its art, the game sources what seem to be stock photos and stills from the TV episodes that inspired the mission cards.
It's usually at this point I would accuse the game of looking cheap for using photos instead of producing actual art.
However, this style works for Thunderbirds Danger Zone and I think it looks completely acceptable. Partially because marionettes and models look different enough from bland photos to look good and partially because those marionettes and models were part of the TV show's unique aesthetic and what people would expect from a licensed game.

The only icons used in the game are for the 4 resources, they will be easily learnt and each one looks distinct in shape and fits its theme, a cannister for fuel, a computer terminal for knowledge and so on.
Except for tech; no matter what anyone says, the icon for tech just looks like a drain to me!

How's it play?
Note: The setup and rules description below are for games with 3+ players.
​Additionally, the setup and rules are for the beginner mission - End of The Road. Later missions introduce more cards and more rules.
​Setup

• Mission: First choose 1 of the 7 available missions.
  Danger zone cards: Take the 3 danger zone cards associated with the chosen mission and place them in a row, thus forming the top row of 3 columns of cards.
  Journey cards: The mission's difficulty will determine how many rows of journey cards should be used, typically 1 or 2. Players can theoretically choose to vary this to alter the mission's difficulty.
  The journey cards should be shuffled into a face-down deck, cards should be dawn from here and placed beneath the danger zone cards to form 3 columns.
  Character tokens: The mission card will determine which characters are used. Place each character token below the bottom of their specific column.
  Journey tokens: shuffle all the journey and Hood tokens and randomly deal one on to each of the journey cards. Finally deal a journey token to each character token.
  Tracey Island card: These cards count as a countdown timer, the lower count on the card used, the harder it is to successfully complete the mission. Players can decide on which of these countdown cards to use, they are numbered from 4-10.
• Players: Players have the following setup.
  Resource cards: Shuffle the resource cards into a face-down deck and deal 3 to each player.
  First player: Determine a starting player, give them the 'Jeff' character token.
  This player becomes the.... 'Jeff player'!

Overall
I know why resource values have to be matched exactly mechanically - otherwise it would be too easy a game. Thematically though, it feels a bit strange that players might have too much team spirit or knowledge.
Other than that, Thunderbirds Danger Zone feels quite strong thematically. I like how the game sends specific characters to deal with specific danger zone cards which I imagine mirrors what occurs in that episode. I like the that idea characters can also provide some assistance.
The art direction also makes it feel quite like playing a Thunderbirds episode which is exactly what you'd want from the game.

Mechanically, I feel Thunderbirds Danger Zone is a bit of a mixed bag. This is particularly true of the slight asymmetrical gameplay.
The Jeff player is faced with a somewhat meaningful decision when choosing which objective to target. They'll want to pick one which they have the most options and flexibility in modifying if required.
Luck will also play a part in the Jeff player's role when they pick 2 cards to flip, frequently they will need to adapt to what is revealed.
For the non Jeff players it will feel less meaningful. Basically; if the objective has a low value, players will want to play cards with a low value in the required resource and vice versa if the objective resource has a high value. Since players will not know what other participants will be playing, luck will play a not insignificant part in this.
To be fair, there is a bit of higher level play in remembering the resource value on a journey card that the Jeff player picks up in a swap and such knowledge can prove advantageous in later rounds.

I will add that this kind of luck particularly bad luck is fairly typical in cooperative games to keep them challenging.
Luckily (SIC), the game provides the Jeff player will some tools to mitigate bad luck when it occurs.

Thunderbirds Danger Zone is straightforward for a cooperative game which is a advantage. Many games of this type of game tend to have fairly elaborate rules to manage the boards turn, there's none of that here.

Although that does bring me to complexity/difficulty. Thunderbirds Danger Zone sits in a bit of nebulous middle space here.
The game clearly has some scope as a family game but can be a bit overly complex and challenging for beginners or casual players. Conversely, I found the sometimes lack of meaningful decisions and swingy luck a bit frustrating and engaging, I also feel that most seasoned gamers would find this to also be the case.

If you're a fan of Thunderbirds and are in the market for a licensed cooperative game, this may float your boat, or if you're looking a more approachable cooperative game to play with more causal players or the family, it's also worth a look.
​Not one for me though.

​1st April 2023

We're no April's fools, we're at Wogglecon 7! For a day of gaming fun. I played the following games at Wogglecon7.

Akropolis
Sushi Roll
Just One
Sagrada - First Play!
Pan Am

1st April 2023

We're at Wogglecon 7 for a day of gaming fun. Second game of the day was Sagrada which means 'sacred' in Spanish.
Gaming and Wogglecon are definitely sacred but is Sagrada all about creating stained glass windows through the medium of dice-placement, albeit with dice that look quite glassy!

The most noticeable component of Sagrada are the bright colourful dice. They are well made, rounded and translucent with a 'gem' type finish.
Usually I have a preference for wooden dice but can see why the game uses this type as it's a great fit the stained glass window theme.
The player board with it's recessed grid works well when used with the window pattern cards which slide smoothly into place and dice which happily set in their spots.
The cards are the standard you'd expect off of a modern game and the inclusion of glass beads is a nice touch.

The game's art direction continues the theme of stained glass windows. There's lots of brightly coloured glass panes shown on the player boards and round tracker. White much of it is just abstract shapes, it's very colourful without obscuring important detail.
It also lends the game a eye catching quality all of which I like.

For the most part, the game's iconography is easily understood.
Some of the objective cards and tool cards might require explanation or looking up in the manual but this doesn't really affect the flow of play and isn't an issue.

How's it play?
​Setup

• Player board: Give each player a player board.
  Window pattern cards: Give each player 2 pattern cards. Each player should then choose 1 to keep and discard the other out of play. The chosen pattern card should then be slid into the player's board, this will display the pattern cards colours and numbers through the board.
  Favour tokens: Give each player a number of favour tokens as indicated by the pattern card they took.
  Private objective card: Shuffle the private objective cards into a face-down deck and deal 1 each to every player, players should keep this card hidden from their opponents.
• Public objective cards: Shuffle these into a face-down deck and deal 3 into a central playing area.
• Tool cards: Shuffle the tool cards into a face-down deck and also deal 3 face-up into the central area.
• Dice: Place all dice into the bag and give it a good shake.
• Round tracker: Place the round track into the central playing area.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Sagrada, players will be placing dice on to their player board in an attempt to match the criteria on the public/private scoring cards while also meeting the requirements dictated by the pattern cards.

The game utilises something of a typical turn order but during each round every player will have the opportunity to draft 2 dice; although only 1 at a time.

• Round start: At the start of a round, whoever is the first play should take the bad and draw out a number of dice dependant on player order. This amounts to 2 dice per player plus 1 more. Then the first player should roll those dice and place them into the central playing area.
• Drafting: Each player will have the opportunity to draft 2 dice, first in turn order and then in reverse turn order.
  ​First player: Drafting always commences with the first player beginning as the active player. They perform their action(s) then play progresses to the player on their left and so on.
  Once the last player in the turn order has completed their turn, the order of play reverses, mean the last player now goes first with play progressing to their right and the first player going last!
  This means the first player has their 2nd action last while the last player has 2 actions in a row.
• Active player: Whenever someone becomes the active player they have the option of performing the following 2 actions in any order they see fit.
  • Draft die: The active may draft 1 of the available dice and add it to their window with the following placement rules.
    • Pattern requirements: Any die placed on a player's window must match the requirement shown on the pattern card. Thus a green die (Of any value.) must go on a green space and a die showing 4 (Of any colour.) must go on a space showing a '4'.
    • First die: The first die a player places in their window must be along the edge or in the corner.
    • Subsequent dice: All other dice placed in the window must now be adjacent a die already in the window, the can be diagonally or orthogonally.
    • No matches: When placing a die orthogonally adjacent to another die, it must be a different colour and number. A blue die cannot be placed orthogonally adjacent to another blue die. A '2' cannot be placed adjacent to another '2'.
  • Use tool card: The active player may choose to spend a favour token to utilise the ability on any of the tool cards. This can be be performed before or after drafting a die.
• End of round: Once the round has been completed; that is each player has had the opportunity to draft 2 dice, then the round has ended and the following occurs.
  Round tracker: Take the remaining die or dice and place them on the spot for the current round on the round tracker. All of these dice are now out of play.
  New first player: The player who drew the dice should pass the bag to the player on their left who now becomes the first player for the following round.

Endgame
Play continues for 10 rounds whereupon the game ends and goes to scoring.
VPs can be accumulated from several sources.

• Public objective cards: Players will score VPs by meeting the criteria of the public cards, it is possible to score a card multiple times.
• Private objective card: As with public cards, players can score VPs from their private cards, this too can be done multiple times.
• Favour tokens: Every unspent favour token is worth 1 VP.
• Empty spaces: Players actually lose VPs for spaces on their window no containing dice. Each empty space will cost the player 1VP.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Using translucent, glass-like dice to represent details of a stained glass window is a cool nice idea that fits thematically. It doesn't hurt that it all looks quite pretty when finished.

Mechanically, Sagrada is straightforward - drafting and placing dice to try and match objectives. The challenge facing players however, comes from managing the obstacles that will impede them.
Players will have to take into account both the requirements of their pattern board when placing dice and the placement rules and how they interact with each other.

E.g., placing a red die on a blank space orthogonally adjacent to a red space on their pattern board will mean now that no die can be placed on the red space - because it will be adjacent to the already placed red die.

Leaving spaces empty like this will cost players VPs.
It means players will need to anticipate which dice they place to avoid pitfalls such as this. They will need to pay attention to not only which dice they draft but since they draft 2 dice per round, the order in which they are drafted.
Additionally, players will need to manage having to draft dice they might not want at that time. This can be difficult because of the rule's placement restrictions.
There's also definitely a higher lever of play here that comes from seeing what dice other players will need and trying to gauge which opponents will take which dice and react appropriately.

There's not much more to say about Sagrada.
I guess some people may not like the low amount of interaction between players which only occurs when drafting dice but I don't have an issue with it. I will add that Sagrada sort of feels a little like a puzzle to solve than a game in itself and some people may not like this aspect. Again, it doesn't bother me.

Sagrada is easy to understand with its 'draft and place' mechanics but presents players with a not insignificant challenge: Since the game is played over 10 rounds and players can get 2 dice per round, it is possible to entirely fill a window but I don't think that is a simple proposition.
It feels kind of unremarkable as a game because it is so straightforward without bells and whistles or any gimmicks but in practice provides a solid, enjoyable gameplay experience which taxes the braincells a little and pushes players to make tricky decisions. 

Number of different games played was almost identical to last month being only 1 lower but there were more total plays. First plays were down on last month.
It looks like went spend more time playing games we were familiar this month.

​First plays: 4
Different games: 22
​Total games: 38

​Tuesday 28th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Akropolis - 5
Istanbul - First Play!
​
Sunday 26th on Board Game Arena
Martian Dice - 24 
Tranquillity: The Ascent - 4
Stella: Dixit Universe - 15
Dice Forge - 13
Just One - 19
None Shall Pass! - 3

Thursday 23rd Aldershot
Jump Drive - 18
HeroQuest - 14; Final Mission!

Tuesday 21st at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Port Royal - 25
Rolling Realms - 5

​Sunday 19th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 65
Roll'n Bump - 11
Loco Momo - 17
Just One - 18
None Shall Pass! - 2
Tranquillity: The Ascent - 3

Sunday 12th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 64
Can't Stop - 42
Just One - 17
Tranquillity: The Ascent - 2
None Shall Pass! - First Play!

Friday 10th Woking
Wingspan - 7

Thursday 9th Aldershot
Scout - 4
HeroQuest - 13

Tuesday 7th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club
Canvas - First Play!
Rolling Realms - 4
Jump Drive - 17

Sunday 5th on Board Game Arena
Lucky Numbers - 63
Can't Stop - 41
Railroad Ink - 46
Just One - 16
Tranquillity: The Ascent - First Play!

Thursday 2nd Aldershot
Akropolis - 4
Jump Drive - 16
Trains - 2
Heckmeck - 15

28th March 2023

Tuesday is here again and we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for an evening of gaming goodness.

Game of the night is Istanbul.

Ah, Istanbul, home of an ancient settlement and exotic gateway between the east and the west...
...Also a place where frenzied merchants rapidly push wheelbarrows around the bazaar, trailed by assistants while looking to acquire rubies in this worker placement game.

The component quality is good for nearly all of Istanbul.
The game makes good use of wooden components and dice which is always good. All the cardboard tokens and tiles are sturdy enough. The cards are also good.
It's all the quality you'd expect from a modern game.
The only criticism I have is that fitting the extensions into the wheelbarrow feels fiddly and when trying to put in the final extension it can be too tight and wont fit properly. It's a minor oversight that doesn't affect the game experience but it could have been a bit better.

There's unique artwork on all the location tiles. Even though it uses a pretty standard style of illustration, I think it looks good and gives the game a eye-catching presence on the table. I also feel that it's quite suitable, being evocative and colourful without obscuring important information.

Iconography in Istanbul is a bit of a mixed bag. Much of it is easily understood but the occasional icon and in particular, bonus cards will find players leafing through the rulebook for clarification.
This is fairly infrequent though and is a minor inconvenience rather than detrimental

How's it play?
Setup

• Players: Give each player the merchant, assistant, family member tokens and cubes in their colour.
  Wheelbarrow: Each player should take a wheelbarrow tile, then place their 4 cubes on the 4 'empty' spaces on their goods tracks.
  When players gain goods, they move the cube along the respective track.
  You will note at the game start, players can only have 2 of each good. By acquiring extensions, players can eventually hold up to 5 of each good.
• Tiles: The 16 location tiles will need to be put out in a 4x4 grid. This can be done either by using 1 of the 2 predetermined setups or randomly - although there are some restrictions using the random method. Additionally, many of the locations will have further setup.
  • Caravansary: Shuffle the bonus cards into a face-down deck and place them close to the caravansary.
  • Fountain: Each player should create a stack of 5 tokens with the the merchant token at the top and 4 assistants beneath and place their stack on the fountain location tile.
    The 5th assistant token should be set aside for the time being, they can be acquired during play.
    Gemstone dealer: Place rubies on the gemstone dealer location tile as per player count.
  • Markets: Sort the demand tiles into their 2 types. Shuffle each into a face-up stack and place them on to their respective market tiles.
  • Mosques: Sort the mosque tiles by type/colour, then sort each stack by goods cost, with the lowest at the top and highest cost at bottom. Then place 2 stacks on each of the 2 mosque tiles.
    Rubies: Finally add rubies to each mosque as per player count.
  • Police station: Each player should place their 'family member' cylindrical token on the police station location tile.
  • Post office: The post office has 2 rows of 4 spaces, place the 4 mail cubes along the upper row on the post office location tile.
  • Sultan's palace: Place rubies on the Sultan's palace location tile as per player count.
  • Wainwright: Place rubies and wheelbarrow extensions on the wainwright location as per player count.
  • Governor & smuggler: Roll the dice for each, then place their tokens on the location with the matching number.
• First player: Determine a starting player.
  The starting player should take 2 Lira, the next player gets 3 Lira, 3rd gets 4 Lira and so forth.
  Bonus card: Each player should draw a bonus card.

On to play
In Istanbul, players are attempting to acquire 5 or 6 rubies (Dependant on player count.) and the game provides a variety of methods to achieve this.
Istanbul follows the usual turn structure with the active player completing their turn before play progresses to their left.

During their turn, the active player will act in 2-4 phases - depending on circumstances.
The 4 phases always occur in the order shown below.

• Movement: The active player can move their stack of tokens up to 2 spaces during this phase, this cannot be diagonal and when the stack reaches its destination, one of the following must occur.
  • Drop off assistant: The active player takes one of the assistant tokens out of their stack and places it elsewhere on the same location tile.
  • Pick up assistant: If the active player already has an assistant token on the location space they stopped at, then they can add it back into their stack.
  • Pass: If the active player cannot or does not want to drop off or pick up an assistant, then their turn ends immediately unless the active player ended up at the fountain!
• Encounter merchant: This phase is conditional and if the active player ended their movement in a location tile with 1 or more merchants that belong to other players, then the active player must pay those players 2 Lira each.
  If they cannot or do no want to pay, then the active player's turn ends immediately, this does not occur if they stopped at the fountain.
• Action: This phase represents the bulk of gameplay and the active player may now choose to undertake the action for the tile they stopped at.
  There a quite a few actions a player can perform.
  • Black market: When the player's merchant is at the black market, they can gain 1 green/red/yellow good.
    Additionally, they should roll the 2 dice, the result will grant them 0-3 blue goods.
  • Caravansary: The active play draws 2 bonus cards into their hand and then discards 1 bonus card.
    When drawing cards from being at the caravansary location, the active player may choose to draw from the discard pile instead.
  • Fountain: When the active player's merchant is at the fountain, they can recall any number of their assistant tokens back into their stack.
  • Gemstone dealer: Here the active player may purchase a ruby. The more rubies that are purchased throughout the game, the more they will cost.
  • Market: When a merchant stops at one of the 2 markets, they can sell goods matching the demands on the current demand card. The more matching goods they sell, the more they earn. Each of the markets will determine how much the player earns.
    Regardless of how many goods are sold, the current demand tile is put at the bottom of the stack and a new demand tile is revealed.
  • Mosques: When a merchant stops at one of the 2 mosques, they can acquire one of the 2 mosque tiles there.
    To do so, the player's wheelbarrow must be carrying the goods that match was is shown on the top mosque tile. However, acquiring a tile costs only 1 good of the displayed tile.
    Once a mosque tile is taken, a more expensive version will be revealed beneath.
    Players can only have copy of each type of tile regardless of where they acquired it from.
  • Police station: When a player's merchant stops at the police station and if their family member is there, then the player can 'free' their family member.
    Since their family member 'knows how to get stuff', the player can immediately place the family member token on any other space and trigger its action. The family member does not have encounters and does not benefit or is restricted in that way.
  • Post Office: If the active player's merchant stops at the post office, they acquire all the items shown on the 4 uncovered spaces.
    After this, they must slide the leftmost cube on the upper row to the space directly below, thus changing the resources earned by the next merchant to stop here.
    When all 4 cubes are on the lower row, the next merchant to stop at the post office will claim their resources and put all 4 cubes back on the upper row.
  • Sultan's palace: When a merchant stops here, the player can trade goods for a ruby.
    As with the gemstone dealer, the more rubies that are acquired here, the more costly they become to trade for.
  • Tea house: Time for some friendly gambling! When a merchant stops here, the player announces a number from 3-12, then they roll both dice.
    If the rolled number is equal to or greater than the announced number, then the active player acquires Lira equal to the number they announced.
    If the number was lower, then they take 2 Lira.
  • Wainwright: Stopping here allows the merchant's player to buy an extension for their wheelbarrow. Once the 3rd and final extension has been acquired, the player can acquire 1 ruby from the wainwright tile.
  • Warehouses: There are 3 warehouses, one each respectively for green, red and yellow goods.
    If a merchant stops at a warehouse, they can fill the related good on their wheelbarrow to the maximum amount.
• Other encounters: As with the other encounter phase, this is conditional and depends on what tokens are also on the location where the active player's merchant stopped.
  • Other players' family members: If a merchant encounters the family member of another player on their location, they must snitch on them to the cops!
    This earns the active player 3 Lira or a bonus card.
  • Governor: When the governor token is on the same location as a player's merchant, the player can draw bonus card, then they must discard a bonus card or pay 2 Lira.
    After encountering the governor, roll 2 dice and move the governor's token to the location with the number that matches the dice roll.
  • Smuggler: When the smuggler is encountered, the active player may gain the good of their choice, they must then discard a good of their choice or play 2 Lira.
    As with the governor, after encountering the smuggler, roll the dice and relocate the smuggler to the new location.
• Bonus cards: These are not part of any phase in particular and the active player may play any number of bonus cards during at any time during their turn.

Endgame
The game end is triggered when any player acquires the required number of rubies.
​Play continues for the current round until all participants have had equal turns.
Finally, each player will have the option to play unused bonus cards, since Lira and goods act as a tie-breaker this can be important.

Rubies are tallied, highest amount wins.

Overall
I don't know whether it's deliberate or not but there's a slightly cynical thread of humour running through Istanbul. 
It's an amusing facet of the game that merchants are useless without assistants to boss around or how everyone has that one shady cousin who 'knows someone' or 'can get you stuff'.
Thematically, the game is presented quite well.
Your merchant and their little band go from place to place, looking to earn money or get goods in order to eventually gain rubies.

Mechanically, Istanbul is relatively straightforward. While there's quite a lot of tiles and consequently a lot going and a lot to think about and possibly remember, none of it in practice is actually overly complex.
Istanbul presents players with the conundrum of balancing the need to increase their abilities via mosque and extension tiles or trying to acquire rubies.
Broadly speaking, the game game provides some one-off way of gaining rubies but two main avenues to accumulating them - which are by spending goods or spending Lira and then providing several ways to acquire goods and Lira.
It means that Istanbul is a game of planning efficient moves and maximising actions. This is particularly the case when dropping off or picking up assistants. Well thought out play will allow a player to do this without visiting the fountain which requires an entire turn to gather assistants.

While the game is essentially a race without direct conflict between players, there's still some interaction that goes on.
There is arguably a higher level of play where players could try and anticipate the actions of their opponent allowing them to block opponents by putting their merchant on specific locations, forcing other players to pay out to go there or preventing them entering all together. However, this tends to occur by accident more than design.
Another area of interaction is at the markets, the more goods sold a player can sell an once at a market, the more money that player earns but taking longer to do this risks being trumped by another player fulfilling the demand tile earlier.
So players will need to occasionally adapt to situations as needed as well as planning their actions.

Istanbul does a good job balancing varied gameplay, strategy and meaningful decisions with ease-of-play, although I'm not sure I would describe it as entirely suitable for non-gamers but core gamers should have no problems comprehending the game
It also has a novel and clever implementation of worker placement mechanics which provide some satisfying moments when used effectively.

This is a mid-weight game with a somewhat lengthy play time - although it never felt overlong or unwelcome. I found it to be an enjoyable worker placement game. Istanbul   is a game that's definitely worth trying.

12th March 2023

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

'None shall pass.'

Don't worry, I was done with the Monty Python quotes years ago!

None Shall Pass is a cooperative, turn based battle game inspired by the 8bit JRPGs of old where the players take on the roles of 'guards' facing evil monsters 

Caveat: We have only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• Tiles: None Shall Pass! uses numerous tiles, boards and cards to track both players and monsters.
  Monster board: This board is used to track the health or hit points (HP) and attack strength of whichever enemies appear.
  ​Finally, there's a breach track that goes from 5 to 0 and is used to track time - or lack of it specifically!

• Dice: The game comes with a set of dice in each player colour. There are 3 normal six-siders in each set.
• Tokens: Tokens are used to track enemy monster stats as well as player stats such as HP and XP.

None Shall Pass! draws its inspiration for art from the same source as it draws its inspiration for gameplay - which is turn-based 8bit JRPGs.

I'm sort of conflicted about this art style.
8 bit pixel art has been done to death on a wide range of video and computer games seeking to invoke nostalgia over the last few years and doesn't have much appeal to me anymore. Having said that, it's a fairly uncommon style in board games and gives 'None Shall Pass!' a unique appearance with at least a little charm.

There's very little iconography in None Shall Pass! and what there is of it, is easily recognised: A heart represents HP, a blue shield means defence and a sword means attack power and so on.
All remaining game information is relayed via text.

How's it play?
Setup

• Players: Have each player choose one of the character classes (Called guards here.) and take their relevant character cards.
  These cards should be put into 3 stacks of 2 cards each and arranged so that the level 1 side is face-up at the top of each stack. The 3 stacks should then be arranged so that the activation numbers run sequentially from 1-6.
  Dice: Each player should take the 3 dice in their colour.
  XP: Each player takes 2XPs worth of XP tokens.
  4 Characters: If there are less than 4 player's, extra characters must be controlled by the players to bring the character count up to 4.
• Monster board: Put out the monster boards.
  Monster cards: Sort all enemy cards by level and shuffle them into face-down stacks. Take 1 card from each stack and create a deck of 5 face-down cards with the level 1 monster on the top, going down to the level 5 boss at the bottom.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
None Shall Pass! is a cooperative game where the players are trying to defeat all 5 monsters in the monster deck.
Each round is broken down into 2 phases.
During the first phase, the players will act in turn order and during the second phase, the enemy monster will counter attack.

• Round start: The following occurs at the start of each round.
  • Reveal monster: At the start of the game reveal the level 1 monster. Additionally, if at the start of any round where there is no monster available (Because the previous one was defeated.), reveal a new monster.
    Monster stats: When a monster is revealed, set the HP and damage tokens  on the monster board to the values as shown on it's card.
    Breach: Set the token on the breach board to '4'.
  • Roll dice: Each player rolls their 3 dice and places each one above the character card with the matching activation number.
  • Defeated character: If a character had taken more damage than their health from the monster in the previous, they are incapacitated. Incapacitated characters are not dead but do not roll dice and instead spend their turn healing.
• Player phase: During this phase, each player performs 1 or possibly 2 actions in turn order.
  • Activate action: The active player can activate an action that corresponds the result of one of their dice.
    Thus if they rolled 1, 2, & 5, they can perform one of the actions on their character cards that respond to those numbers.
    Rolled a 6: If active player has a 6 on one of their dice, they can activate the action for the 6 in addition to the action from another die.
    Triples: If the active player rolled triples, they can activate any 2 actions of their choice or a single action twice!
    Resolve action: Typically, actions will harm the monster in some way by decreasing HP or attack strength, actions will also commonly assist characters. A few actions affect the breach number or gift characters with bonus XP.
    Peril: Once the active player's action(s) have been resolved, they must move the die that used to active the action to the peril board. The die goes on the space indicated by the peril number on the activated skill.
    If a action that was activated has a peril number of '3', the die must go on to space 3 on the peril board.
    Spend XP: Players may spend XP to flip one of their character cards. to the next level at any time, giving them access to improved abilities.
    Each character card can increased to level 4.
    Next player: Once the active player has completed their turn, play progresses to the player on their left.
• Monster phase: Once all players have taken their turns, play then progresses to the monster.
  • Monster action: The monster now activates its action. There are a variety of actions that can occur but usually it involves attacking and damaging characters.
    Target: The monster will always attack the character the furthest up the peril board, if more than 1 character is furthest up, it will target all of them or split damage between them.
    Decrease breach: Move the token on the breach board down a space.
    If the breach token reaches '0', the monster has managed to escape the players. It is removed from the game, a new round begins by revealing a new monster.
    Players do not get XP for monsters that escaped.
    Defeated monster: If the players managed to reduce the monster HP to 0 during the player phase, then the monster phase is skipped entirely. A new round begins by revealing a new monster.
• Next round: Once the monster has had it's action, play progresses to the next round, either by continuing to fight the current monster or revealing a new one.

Endgame
If the players reach the 5th level boss monster and it's breach score is reduced to '0', the player immediately lose.

If however, they manage to reduce the monsters HPs to '0', then the players collectively win!

Overall
With its pixel art style and turn based combat, None Shall Pass! does a good job of invoking its JRPG theme of having the party stand in a row and attacking enemies! None Shall Pass! also manages to seem a little bit like a 'boss-rush' game.
The game also feels a little different to many cooperative games. There's no firefighting in None Shall Pass!, no need to halt the spread of something malignant here, or need to prevent something from being destroyed.

Mechanically, None Shall Pass! is mostly easy to understand.
The game has a good selection of character classes to choose from, all of whom genuinely feel quite different and offer a variety of actions.
The Death Strider who does more damage, the more hurt they become and the Stargazer with their solar and lunar aspects were stand out classes for me.

During their turn, a player will be presented with a choice of 1 or 2 of up to 3 actions from a total of 6 actions and the dice will to a certain extent dictate player choices.
Broadly speaking players will looking to hinder monsters or buff characters in some way or another with maximum efficiency.

Monsters need to be defeated as quickly as possible and every round a monster isn't defeated, it goes to slipping away and loosing XP for the heroes.
While this might not seem so bad, being underpowered when fighting the boss will make ultimate loss more likely.

Players will also need to be mindful of the peril number of their chosen action. Players will need to coordinate who goes to the top of the peril track and make sure they can deal with the incoming monster attack if possible. While getting incapacitated isn't the end of the world, it will mean the character will miss at least 1 following turn.
In fact, players will need to coordinate all of the time to work effectively and play off each others' strengths, strategies for this can radically change according to the mix of characters.

Players will also need to think about how they spend their XP. The power of abilities will be altered by level ups and even the ability to gain XP can be levelled up! This will effect how battles are approached
None Shall Pass! is quite rightfully harsh in this regard, I never felt like I had enough XP and it was always a difficulty, meaningful decision deciding what to upgrade.

However, while playing None Shall Pass! was fun, there was something a little lacking.
​It's a RPG-like game without the storytelling, adventuring, exploration and finding treasure - things I strongly associate with fantasy RPGS. Some kind of quest or story mode would have been a welcome addition. I just wish were was a little more 'meat on the bones'.
Additionally, despite the variety in classes and randomness the dice bring, I'm not too sure how much replayability the game has.
I think there's about 5 monsters each in every level and while that means there will be a lot of combinations that can appear, once you've seen a monster - you've seen it.

We still play the game occasionally and personally I'm happy to do so on those occasions, avoid overplaying None Shall Pass! in my opinion and it'll be an enjoyable experience.

7th March 2023

Tuesday evening is here again and we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns.

'It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas.' - Paul Cezanne.

Canvas is a game about creating paintings - well sort of and you actually start with a blank canvas - well sort of!

The tokens are all constructed from suitably thick card stock and feel satisfyingly sturdy. The tuck box is made from the same material used for tuck boxes that contain decks of cards and like those boxes, it's fairly flimsy but unless it's mistreated, it should be fine.
​The scoring cards are made of standard card.

For a game about art, as you might expect, there's a lot of art in Canvas. However, it's all 'patchwork' art that comes in small elements which during the course of the game, players will combine to make their sort of own artwork.
Canvas provides lots of these small pieces of art in a variety of styles and sizes. It's hard to say whether it's good or bad because it's not meant to constitute finished art. Regardless of that, it all looks OK to me. Certainly, there's a lot of bright colour going on, which is something I like.

While Canvas uses an average-ish amount of iconography, I found some of it to be rather abstract and counter-intuitive.
The bonus silver ribbons and colous are easily understood, but triangle representing shape and a striped box representing texture?
It's also complicated a little further by whatever the scoring criteria are on the scoring cards which seemed not quite as simple as they could be. Players especially need to be aware of the scoring criteria
It's a bit of a steep curve but ultimately not a gamebreaker though and requires some learning.

How's it play?
Setup

• Game mat: Put out the game mat.
  Scoring cards: Either use a chosen selection or randomly deal 4 scoring cards into the 4 spaces on the matt.
  Art cards: Shuffle the art cards into a deck and place them into the tuck box, then place the tuck box on to the rightmost space on the game mat. Deal 5 cards from the tuck into the 5 available spaces.
• Players: Give each player the following.
  Background cards: Give each player 3 background cards, these should be in  transparent sleeves.
  Inspiration tokens: Give each player 4 inspiration tokens.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Canvas, each player is creating 3 paintings - which will be created by layering 3 art cards over a background card. Once a painting is created, it will earn ribbon as per the scoring criteria. Then, once the game is over, ribbons will earn VPs.
Canvas uses a traditional turn order with the active player acting, then play progressing to the player on their left.

During their turn, the active player in basic terms has 2 choices.

• ​Draft art card: The active player may draft 1 of the 5 available art cards into their hand with the following restrictions.
  Cost: The active player may take the leftmost art card for free but any card further along must be paid for with inspiration tokens. 1 token must be placed on every card that is 'skipped'.
  Acquire tokens: Conversely, the active player may collect any tokens on a art card which they draft.
  Conveyor belt: Once a art card has been taken from the drafting track, cards are slid to the left to fill the gap and a new card is added to the rightmost space.
  Max hand: A player can never have more than 5 art cards in their hand at any time. If a player has collected 5 arts, they cannot draft anymore and must instead create a painting.
• Create painting: When a player has 5 art cards in hand, they must create a painting, if they have 3 or 4 art cards, they can choose to create a painting.
  ​Exactly 3 art cards are required to create a painting.
  Creating a painting is technically easy; the active player takes 3 of their art cards and layers them on top of each other in any order they see fit and them places them into one of the sleeves with a background card.
  Score artwork: The active player then scores the newly created artwork.
  The artwork will be scored across all 4 scoring cards.
  Only visible scoring icons can be scored, that is, any that were covered by other icons are not scored.
  ​A painting will earn ribbons of the corresponding colour for meeting each scoring card's scoring criteria. It is possible to earn more than 1 ribbon from a scoring card by meeting it's criteria more than once. Additionally, silver ribbon scoring on actual art cards may provide extra ribbons.
• Next Player: Once the active player has either drafted or created, play progress to the player on their left.

Endgame
Once a player has created 3 paintings, their turns are skipped, once all player have created 3 paintings, the game ends and goes to scoring.

Players should now sort their ribbons by colour.
Each scoring card will determine how many victory points (VPs) its set of coloured ribbons will score.
Silver ribbons earn 2 VPs each.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
​Canvas merges its theme with its central mechanic quite well and I have to say it's a a fairly unique mechanic I quite like that also feels fresh. I also like how the game produces some pretty unusual names for the paintings.

Canvas is in implementation, a fairly straightforward game, it utilises familiar drafting and conveyor belt mechanics commonly seen elsewhere. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a good crossover game as I feel the scoring rules are a little obtuse but gamers should have no problems understanding Canvas.

Where the game's depth comes from is in the creation of paintings.
Players can freely choose to layer the art cards they choose to use how they wish but any scoring icons that are not visible are not scored.
This puts players into a quandary, they will need to not just select the art cards for a painting that provide them the best scoring opportunities but also how to layer those art cards to do so!
Furthermore, over multiple plays, the wide choice of scoring cards will force players to approach game slightly differently. Between this and the variety of art cards, there's a lot of replicability to the game.

Thus players must carefully draft whatever cards they might need as well as think about how to use them.
Synergy between cards is key to optimal scoring but I found it was quite hard to get the mix of icons that I wanted and I'm sure that Canvas is one of those games where players will rarely get the 'perfect scoring' they want.
That's a good thing because it means players will have to choose between choices and are pushed to make meaningful decisions, although I must admit that I found it sometimes veered to being close to frustrating instead of challenging.

There's not much more to say really; Canvas is a game that's quick to pick up and relatively quick to play with a easily understandable theme that meshes well with gameplay that feels a little different to anything else.
It's a game definitely worth trying especially if you're looking for a game that has some unique elements.

5th March 2023

It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for another evening of gaming goodness.

​Tranquility: The Ascent is the follow up to the rather good Tranquility and employs similar mechanics, only instead of crossing an ocean, in Tranquility: The Ascent, players are cooperatively climbing a mountain.

Caveat: We've only ever played Tranquility: The Ascent digitally.

What's in a game?

• Panorama cards: These triangular cards are used to form the base of the mountain and thus the base of the playing area.

Tranquility: The Ascent features the same pleasant, colourful and slightly stylised artwork found in its predecessor.
This time however, obviously depicting a variety of harsh hilly and mountainous terrain, up to and including a cold, inhospitable looking snowy peak.
In the digital version unfortunately, much of the art is obscured by large numbers, which is a shame as I quite liked it.

The game uses colours and numbers and other than the illustrations for campfire cards and the like has no iconography. Players should have no trouble at all comprehending Tranquility: The Ascent.

How's it play?
Setup

• Panorama cards: Set out the panorama cards in a row. This row represents the lowest level of the playing area.
• Bridge cards: First, a starting player must be determined.
  ​Then as per the player count, give bridge cards to the relevant players. These cards should be kept separate from other cards for the time being.
• Shuffle cards: Next, add the remaining bridge cards to all the other cards and shuffle them into a face-down deck.
• Deal cards: All cards should dealt out to face-down all players as equally as possible so that each player has their own personal deck.
• Draw hand: If player has a bridge card, then they should draw 4 cards from their personal deck into their hand and then add their bridge to their hand for a total hand of 5 cards.
  Players starting without a bridge card should simply draw a hand of 5 cards.

On to play
In Tranquility: The Ascent, players are attempting to collectively create a pyramid of cards. This is done by playing a row of cards and then playing further rows above and so forth. In total, during a successfully completed game, there will be 9 rows of 44 cards.
The game uses a traditional turn structure with the active player acting before play progresses to the player on their left.
During their turn, the active player has a choice of 2 actions.

• Play card: The active player may play an ascent card from their hand into the central playing area with the following provisos and restrictions
  • First card: When the first card on a row (Including the bottom row.) is played, it must be on the furthest left on that row.
  • Adjacent: After the first card has been played in a row, all further cards must be played adjacent to cards on that row with the following restrictions.
    • Different colour: 2 adjacent cards cannot have the same colour, they must be different. This also applies to campfire cards
    • Matching or higher number: When playing an ascent card, it's number must be equal to or higher than the row it is played into.
      I.e., a 1 value card can only ever be played in the bottom row. While only cards with a value of 8+ can be played in to the 8th row. It is OK to place cards with higher numbers into lower rows. E.g., a 6 can be placed on to the 2nd row.
    • Above: A card can be played on a higher row provided there are at least 2 cards directly beneath it.
    • Cost: Once an ascent card is placed, the active player must potentially pay a cost which involves discarding cards equal to the difference between the card they played and the card they played it next to.
      ​If the 2 cards have identical numbers, then the cost is 0.
  • Special cards: The rules for playing special cards a little different.
    • Bridge card: These cards can be used to leave gaps between adjacent cards. However, bridge cards must be covered by ascent cards in order to win the game. Furthermore: when a ascent cards does cover a bridge, they may be a cost for doing so.
    • Campfire: A campfire card can be used to swap for a already placed ascent card, thus allowing the ascent card to be used again. The campfire card's colour must match the card being swapped for.
    • Summit card: The last card played in order to win must be a summit card at the peak.
• Skip turn: The active player may skip their turn by discarding 2 cards of their choice.
• Replenish hand: Regardless of what action the active player took, they must replenish their hand back up to 5 (If possible.).
• Next player: Play now progresses to the player on the left of the current player.

Endgame
If during any player's turn they cannot play a card for any reason and do not have 2 cards to discard, then the players collectively lose.

If a summit card is played and no uncovered bridge cards remain in the central playing area, then the players have reached the mountain's summit and collectively win!

Overall
Tranquility The Ascent is a sibling to the original Tranquility and as such, they utilise the same name, I'm not sure that there's much 'tranquility' in Tranquility: The Ascent though!

Gone is the lonely sense serenity and titular tranquility one might imagine the crossing of smooth mirror-like waters of an ocean would invoke. In its place are the rigours and obstacles of mountain climbing.
A better name would've been Stress: The Ascent or Acrophobia: The Ascent!

Joking aside, Thematically and visually, Tranquility: The Ascent actually works quite well, building upwards gives a nice sense of progress and I'm sure with the physical copy, a completed pyramid would look quite impressive.

Mechanically, Tranquility: The Ascent clearly shares some DNA with its predecessor.
Broadly speaking, both are about playing numbered tiles next to one another and discarding cards according the difference in numbers.
Tranquility: The Ascent changes this up somewhat, adding colour and placement rules to wisely differentiate it from Tranquility and notably, also increase the difficulty a little: The original Tranquility was fairly 'solvable' once the mathematics involved were understood. This doesn't seem the case with the follow up.
Tranquility: The Ascent also does away with that pesky 'start' card from the original!

All of this means the challenges in Tranquility: The Ascent are slightly different.
When playing cards, colours will now need to be taken into consideration as well as numbers and numbers now also have 2 parts to play, both when placing cards and the height of placing them. E.g., using a '5' on the 1st level can be wasteful since it could potentially be also employed on higher levels. However, the addition of campfire and cards adds some flexibility in this regard as do the bridge cards.

While I feel this requires players planning ahead a little more, players must also recognise when to change their tactics as new cards (For better or worse.) appear in their hand. As already stated I feel the changes add to the difficulty a little. This may be to your liking or not.

For me, I prefer the elegance of the original Tranquility and would choose that iteration over this one. I also have a preference for the sea faring theme.

YMMV of course, Tranquility: The Ascent is a smart little game which presents some interesting problems to overcome and if the mountain climbing theme appeals and you're looking for a cooperative game, Tranquility: The Ascent is worth checking out.