23rd June 2019

It's Sunday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns'. Normally this would mean 50 Fathoms, but plans change unexpectedly.

And when life gives to lemons, you play 'Miskatonic University: The Restricted Collection'.

​In Miskatonic University: The Restricted Collection all the players are 'well respected' academics who are completing for a promotion.
It appears that promotion in Miskatonic University achieved by going into the university's Restricted Collection and retrieving as much knowledge as you can.

'Pretty simple', you may say? But it appears that the Restricted Collection is really scary place where bouts of insanity lurk in every aisle.

Miskatonic University: The Restricted Collection is a set collecting and push your luck (Or more accurately, push you sanity.) game.

What's in a game?
Firstly, the game comes in a box that looks a bit like an old book and is thematically very nice for a game about a library.
The lid is held shut with a magnetic latch and swings open (Yes, like a book.) Within, you will find all the necessary components. Inside you will find:

• Player cards and board: Each player has their own little game board and deck of 'defence' cards
• Points cards; the game has 3 different types of points cards, not all are earned the same way. There are; black set point cards, red random point cards and grey bonus point cards. See below for a better explanation of what they are.
• The Library deck; this is the guts of the game and represents the deck players will be drawing from.

The components (And the packaging.) are pretty straightforward and contain some nicely evocative art. The individual player board is strange thing. completely superfluous to the game, but allowing the game to do a clever little visual trick, which is explained below.

How's it play?

The game is played over 5 rounds and is about collecting sets of cards. There are 3 different types of card types. These are all explained below.

First, there's setup.

Defence cards and a player board are given to each player.

• The defence cards are laid out in each players own area face up.
• Defence cards are used to mitigate drawing 'bad' cards from the library deck, more is explained below.
• The game board is not actually a board (Nothing is actually laid on top of the board.). Instead it is more a 'template' which you slot cards up against in the various different sets you collect.

Next the points cards are laid out. This done every round for all 3 rounds.

• First the black set point card is laid out. There are 5 of these and they increase  in value over the rounds. There is one card for each round. The value of the cards starts at 6 and increases to 10.
• The deck of red random cards is shuffled. The value of these cards are 2-6. At the start of each of the 5 rounds (After the black card has been laid out.) a number of them are dealt out and placed in a column, in descending value beneath the black card for that round.
• The combined number of black and red cards per round is equal to the number of players.
• The grey bonus cards are placed in a deck close to the other points cards. The grey cards are always worth 3 points.

Playing a round.

Gameplay is quite simple, players are faced with 2 choices in their turn. They are:

• ​Continue exploring the restricted collection.
• Voluntarily exit the restriction collection.

Exploring.

This action is pretty simple; the active player draws a card from the library deck and deals with the consequences. As explained above their are 3 types of card that can be drawn. The drawn cards are then slotted against the player according to what type of card they are.

• Grimoire fragments: There are 7 different grimoire fragments and 4 copies of each, for a total of 28 cards.
• if a player manages to draw 5 different fragments, they will complete a set. This is good! If any time a double is drawn by a player who already has a copy of that fragment in their playing area. Then this is bad!
• Sigil pieces: There are 3 different sigil piece card and 12 copies of each, for a total of 36 cards.
• If a player manages to draw all 3 different sigil pieces, (Thus creating an elder sign.). a set is completed. This is good! If they draw a double of a sigil piece they have already drawn. This is bad!
• Students: There are 16 identical student cards. That's right, there are students wandering around lost in the restricted collection area. Typical students - don't even know they're born eh?
• If a player manages to draw 4 student cards. This is good! Student cards are all identical, so there's never a negative to drawing a student. So there is a use to the beer-swilling layabouts then!

Completing a set.
When a player completes a set - it is good, depending on which set they complete.

• ​Completing an elder sign or a grimoire set allows the active player to draw a bonus points card and put it into their area. Bonus points cards are worth 3 points each. The set that was completed is then discarded into the discard.
• Completing a set of 4 student cards allows the active player to turn any one face down defence card back to face up. These student are useful. Then the set of 4 student cards are discarded.

Getting a double.
If the active player gets a double of either a grimoire fragment or a sigil piece, then heir mind temporarily snaps and they flee the library. Fleeing is bad and is explained below.
Student cards are all identical so drawing a double of a student card has no effect.
 
Defence cards.
Defence cards are useful tools used to mitigate the effect of drawing unwanted doubles. Each one has a different affect. One card will allow you to skip the draw phase, another may allow to discard a card before it takes affect. Another allows you to pass it on to another player.
Each card has a different affect and when it is played it is turned face down and cannot be used until turned face up again.
The only way turn face down card back face-up is by completing a set of 4 student cards, or being 'expelled' from the restricted collection!

Exiting the library.
There are 2 ways a player will exit the library.
Either of their own volition or in terror after drawing the wrong kind of double.

If a player chooses to leave the restricted collection, they carry out 2 actions.

• The player collects the lowest scoring card available from the black and red cards laid out for this round.
• The player then discard all their grimoire fragments and sigil pieces.
• The player keeps any student cards they have collected. Those students, they're so loyal, maybe they do know that they've been born!

If they player is forced out of the restricted collection, they carry out 3 slightly different  actions.

• The player takes the lowest scoring card from the available black and red cards for that round and discards it.
• The player then discards all of the cards they have collected - including students. Those poor students, they're having such a hard time of it.
• Finally, the player can turn a face-down defence card back to face-up.

Play continues until all players have left or fled the restricted collection. Then the round has ended.
Play progresses until all 5 rounds have been completed.
Then all the points from the black, red and grey cards are tallied. The highest score, wins.

Overall
Miskatonic University: The Restricted Collection is actually a very simple push your luck game. your only ever have a binary choice, continue exploring or leave. The game is really about calculating risk vs reward.

Is the reward worth the risk? This is always a very situational question.

Staying in the library longer than other players will always net you higher points.
Furthermore completing a set has a double benefit, not only does it gain you 3 points or reset a defence card. It allows you to discard that set and 'reset the meter' and gives you breathing space.

And that's the cleverest thing about this game. The scoring mechanic. The fact that cards are always scored or removed, means that there's always a chance to get the maximum set score for a round. So, not only does it pay to stay in play longer during a round, the stakes get higher from round to round. Those 10 points for staying the restricted collection the longest in the final round are great and can get you back in the game if you're behind- provided you don't go bust in the meanwhile.

But otherwise I found the game is a bit... well a bit 'meh'.
There's nothing bad here, I don't know, it's just a bit uninspired, unexciting, unengaging.

22nd June 2019

​Saturday night beckons and gaming at Matakishi's also beckons.
On this evening we return to a tried and trusted favourite - Machi Koro. You can read my blog about it here.

15th June 2019.

Saturday is upon us, this means gaming night at Matakishi's.

We played 'Space Explorers' and engine building card game about the early days of the space race.
The goal of the game is to recruit scientists and specialists. They then enable you to complete available missions.

The game bears some similarities to 'Splendor', but also some tweaks to differentiate it. 

What's in a game?

Physically there's not much to Space Explorers. There are some tokens, tiles, player aids and a deck of cards.

• The tokens represent the 5 different types of resources in the game are the currency used to acquire the mission cards.
• The deck of cards depict the staff that you will be looking to recruit.
• It's worth noting that the art on the components 'feels' suitability like it's from the 50's and is well done.
• The player aid shows players the 5 column 'tableau' into which they must put their personnel cards, (More is explained about this below.). 

How's it play?

Like Splendor? Only joking! Well it plays a little bit like Splendor!

At the start of the game some personnel cards and mission tiles are laid out.
Research tokens are dealt to players as are some cards.

• When a player takes their turn, they can use their research currency to recruit personnel.
• Interestingly; there is no 'bank' in the game. When a player spends the research currency, they pass it along to the left. I guess scientists like to share research with their community!
• When someone is recruited they will have a specialisation in one or more areas of research. They must be placed into one of the respective research columns. Personnel in your 'tableau' grant you additional research currency in their area of specialisation due to their expertise. Furthermore personnel grant you opportunities to earn more points.
• Personnel can be recruited from your hand or the playing area.
• One area where Space Explorers differs significantly from Splendor is when laying a card on top of another card. In Space Explorers when playing a card in the column with the same currency, the card below is replaced! The research currency for a column does not accumulate. This means the benefits of cards played into tableau earlier will be lost. Abilities that grant points are not 'lost'.
• A mission tile can be claimed by a player when they have enough 'points' in 2 or 3 different catergories.
• Play continues until all the mission tiles have been claimed or someone has recruited 12 or more people.

Points are tallied, highest score wins!

There are other factors to consider, but that's a very basic outline of the rules and game flow.

Overall

I don't want to spend this blog comparing Space Explorers to Splendor, but in this case I think it'll be a useful comparison.


In Splendor, there are essentially no bad decisions you can make, only sub-optimal decisions. Everything you do works to your benefit in one way or another, it's just a matter of how quickly or efficiently you accumulate those benefits

However, in Space Explorers, decisions can have a negative consequence. For example;  spending the game's currency means giving it to other players - and thus helping them out.  Recruiting and placing personnel cards in the tableau can be risky. Covering up the wrong card can seriously screw you up. 

Splendor is a elegant simpler game to play and there's a pleasure in such simplicity of game play.

But Space Explorers is trickier beast. There's more you need to think about. 

Which game is better? Neither. It sounds like a cop out, but both games are good in their own different ways. And I'd be happy to play either one.

11th June 2019

The 3rd and final game of gaming Tuesday at 'The Sovereigns' was Loot.

You can read my thoughts about it here.

11th June 2019.

Gaming Tuesday continues at 'The Sovereign'

Next up is 'Hit Z Road'.

Have you ever thought about what you would do during a zombie apocalypse?
If your first thought was. "Well, I'd design a game about being in a zombie apocalypse!". Then this might be the game for you.

Hit Z Road is designed to look like a game made by a child during an apocalypse, made from bits and pieces of other games etc. Some of these are other actual real games.
So Hit Z Road is a game set inside the game you are playing. Omg! There goes the 4th wall!

In Hit Z Road you play a small band of survivors travelling through a zombie infested apocalyptic landscape towards a safe haven.

What's in a game?

In particular the art direction of this game is superb. Many of the components are designed to look like they came from other games (some real games and some fake). The rulebook looks handwritten. There also human and zombie meeples.

There are 3 different types of currency/resource in the game, (Ammo, petrol and adrenaline. These will be explained below.). The game plays homage to Fallout by using bottle caps as the different currencies and they look cool. 

You can't fault the production values here.

How's it play?

Hit Z Road is a relatively simple game.

Your band of survivors travel from left to right dealing with the obstacles encountered.

There are basically 3 phases in a round.

Routes

• ​Each turn begins with several different routes being laid out in the playing area. Each route takes the form of 2 cards.
• Each card represents a potential encounter that a band of survivors may come across in the order they are laid.

Auctioning

• Now that the different routes are visible to all players, the auctioning can begin.
• The auctioning process differs to most auctioning games in one very important way. Everyone who participates in the auction has to pay for their finishing bid, even if they are last. This is very important as the order of play is determined by finishing positions in the auction. This also has a profound affect on game play and is explained in further detail below.
• Players bid with their bottle caps. When paying the auction, players can choose which types of repirces they want to use - a bottle caps have the same value for an auction.
• Whoever wins the auction can choose which route they want to take, who comes second then gets to choose their route next and so on until everyone has a route to take.

Travel

• Now that the routes are chosen, each player must deal with the encounters ahead as indicated in the cards.
• Cards are dealt with one at a time, going from left to right.
• Most cards will contain zombies, some cards will give you victory points. Some force you to spend resources or grant additional resources.
• This is where resources become very important.
• A player can spend 2 petrol bottle caps to bypass the encounter - which is discarded.
• Once an encounter begins, the active player collects any available resources. If there are zombies present the player may choose to spend ammo bottle caps to attack the zombies at range. The player gets 2 combat dice for each ammo token spent. Ranged combat is resolved by rolling the combat dice. Any kill results will kill a zombie. Any bite results are ignored - as are adrenaline related results. Thus ranged combat consumes resources, but represents the safer way to deal with zombies.
• If zombies are still standing after ranged combat, (Or there was no ranged combat.) then plays proceeds to melee combat. For melee, the active player rolls a number of combat dice equal to the number of survivors they control. Adrenaline bottle caps can be used to alter combat here. Some of the dice results allow you spend adrenaline to avoid having a survivor bitten, (And thus killed.). Some allow you to spend adrenaline to dispatch additional zombies and so on. This is how you use adrenaline. If there are still zombies or survivors standing after the affects of the dice have been resolved. The active player rolls the combat dice again.
• The encounters on the cards get harder as you progress. You can even encounter harder zombies to fight. These take the form or other dice that have less beneficial odds for the players.

And that's pretty much it for the rules. The game continues until all the encounters have been played and dealt with. Upon which any remaining survivors reach their destination and points are 
Points are earned in a few ways.

• Points on cards beaten are scored.
• The player with the most survivors earns bonus points.
• The player with the most of each of the 3 resources scores points for those resources.

The player with the most points wins. ​

Overall

Hit Z Road is a fairly simply game (Which is not necessarily a bad thing.) that will give players a couple of meaningful choices to make every turn - which is a good thing. A bad choice of route can cost a lot of resources.

But the game's problem is the auctioning mechanic, to reiterate:

During the auctioning phase, players bid to create a turn order in which to choose which route to take.
Everybody who make a bid, must pay for the bid they made. Thus it's not a good idea to to try and 'run up' another player's bid, (because your own bid and cost would almost be as high.).
The problem here is 2-fold.
Firstly, the player with the most resources can always go first. This means that they can always have the choice of the most optimal route which will gain them the the most (Or lose them the least.) resources. The remaining players will be bidding (And spending resources.) over the remaining sub-optimal routes which are less beneficial. Essentially, they'll end bidding over the scraps.
​
Secondly, when most of the players have either spend too many resources or realised they can't bid against the player with the most resources. Then they'll stop bidding. And when no one bids, the turn order does not change. This means that the dominant player doesn't even need to spend any resources to stay first or continue dominating.

The results of this is that all the players bar one will be put on to the back foot and will find it very hard to get off it.

This ruins the game. I know why it was done - they didn't want auctioning reduced to 'Auction winner goes first, play proceeds to the left'. But still, it ruins the game.

I've looked online and found I'm not the only person who thinks so. I've seen that this is called a 'Runaway Leader' problem.

This is the harshest I've been about a game in this blog. I've played games I didn't like or care for. But I consider this to be a bad game, no two ways about it.

In the end I look at the game's excellent production values and can't help but think. 'Maybe the designers got their priorities mixed up.'.

in Deep Sea Adventure each player is a treasure-hunting diver who is looking to score big. The game is played over 3 rounds and the player with the most valuable treasures after the end of the 3rd round is the winner.

Deep Sea Adventure packs a whole lot of push-your-luck fun into a little box.

Whilst this is a competitive game, it sneaks a co-operative little mechanic into the rules which in turn players can try to twist to their own advantage.

The game begins with all the players' meeples in a submarine. Beneath the sub is a winding trail of face down markers. Each marker represents a treasure that can be collected by a diver. The value of the treasures also vary, but the deeper you dive, more valuable the treasure. The more sides a marker has, the more potential value it has.

​Play goes like this:

• During a player's turn, they dive into the deeps. This is done by rolling 2 dice (both numbered 1-3, giving a range of 2-6 and an average of 4) and moving that many spaces down the treasure markers.
• When a diver moves, they 'hop' over other divers (don't count the space the other diver is on), this means that sometimes movement is very unpredictable.
• When a player stops on a treasure marker they can choose to pick it up (and place it still face down in front of themselves). If they do pick it up, it is replaced by a 'blank' marker.
• At the start of their next turn, the player can choose to continue diving for more treasure or turn around and head back to the sub. Rolling both dice to move up or down. Once a diver begins their ascent, they can't turn back down again.

And that's it, that's it for the rules.

Ok, there's a bit more.

• At the start of a player's turn, if they are carrying one or more treasures, then they must lower the sub's oxygen level by the number of treasures they are holding.
• Oxygen level? WTF is that? Did I forget to mention the sub's oxygen level? Well, the submarine has an oxygen level that is communally shared by all the divers. When the oxygen level reaches zero, all the divers not back in the sub will.... well you get the idea.
• After rolling the dice to move, the number of treasures carried is also deducted from the dice result. Carrying treasures will slow divers down, possibly down to zero movement.
• Thus carrying treasures consumes oxygen and slows movement. A potentially lethal combination.
• A player does not score points for the treasures they collect until they safely return to the submarine. If they don't make it back to the sub, then the treasure's are dropped and to the bottom of the track and pile up in piles of three. When a treasure plie is picked up, it only counts as one treasure for purposes of movement and oxygen, even though it actually be three treasures. Very tasty if you can get to it!
• After every diver has returned to the sub, or as is more likely the oxygen runs out. Then the round ends. All the blank markers are removed (thus the trail is shortened and the deeper treasures become more accessible). The oxygen level is set back to max and the next round begins. There are 3 rounds to a game.

And that really is it for the rules. Deep Sea Adventure is all about pushing you luck.

Pushing your luck in picking up treasures (so tempting to pick up one extra treasure, just one little treasure - it won't make much of a difference, right).

Pushing your luck in movement. The hop mechanic can prove helpful or can push you way too deep into the depths.

Finally, pushing your luck with the communal oxygen supply. This is the game's best mechanic. This is what turns it from a 'OK' game into a 'good' game. The communal oxygen means that you have watch what the other players are picking up. It forces you to try and think a whole round ahead.

When playing Deep Sea Adventure, there comes a point when oxygen starts to matter. For a couple of turns, no one picks up treasure. Everyone wants something a little better and is willing to dive a little deeper to get it. But then, it all changes, as treasures are picked up, oxygen is used up. The change may seem quite subtle, but can actually be quite dramatic. No oxygen being used, to suddenly 4-5 every round.  Being able to spot and react to this change is key to winning in my opinion.

In a six player game, at some point every player will have picked up at least one treasure, that means six points of oxygen will be used up before your next turn. That's about a quarter of all the available oxygen.

Some players will try and load themselves with treasures to burn up oxygen as they return to the sub, (this is in itself a risky strategy as it also slows movement - several times I've seen loaded down players one or 2 spaces away from the sub and not move at all until the oxygen runs out).

All of this means that you can never be complacent about the oxygen supply and this Deep Sea Adventure is good fun and a good game.

8th June 2019

Saturday night continues at Matakishi's. The Oubilette campaign had finished and we immediately moved on to a new campaign.

Agon is an RPG set in mythic Greece. It's a little unusual in its execution with some intriguing rules. It also marries together co-operative and competitive game play.

I won't go into more detail as this isn't about Agon, it's about ​Agon d6.

A week previously Matakishi had encountered a variation of the 'Freeform Universal' (FU) 'Yes, But' RPG.

After a week of kit-bashing,  Agon d6 was spawned. The lovechild of Agon and a 'Yes But' system.

We created our characters and began session one. You can read Matakishi's post about it here.

8th June 2019

Saturday is here and it's the evening. So it's game time at Matakishi's.

It's the conclusion of our play testing of 'The Black Hack' campaign, 'Oubilette.

I think by now that Matakishi had become fatigued by the whole campaign and pushed through to the conclusion rapidly.

You can read his thoughts about it here.

4th June 2019

Tuesday night and it's game time at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking with the board game club.

Does the idea of game about slowly growing trees excite you? If the answer is yes, then  Photosynthesis is the game for you!


What's in a game?

All of the components of photosynthesis are made from card. All of the of the tokens, even the trees. There are no plastic meeples or soulless wooden cubes here.
And even though this is the case, they are still good components. When a bunch of trees are all on the playing board. It looks impressive.

In photosynthesis there is a main playing board and a sun marker to indicate the direction of the sunlight. Additionally, each player has their own board that contains most of the seeds and trees needed to play the game.
Players also start with some seeds and trees that are not on the player board that are 'available' to use. There is an important difference between the two that will explained a little further down.

How's it play?

The premise of Photosynthesis is to plant seeds, grow the seeds until they become the largest possible trees and then score points from those trees.
 
In a normal game, play continues until the sun has completed 3 revolutions of the board. It takes 6 rounds to complete 1 revolution. Thus players each have a total of 18 turns to win the game.
Each round consists of 2 phases.
Phase one.

• The first phase allow players to collect 'light points', (This is the game's currency that allows players to carry out actions). Collecting light points is an intriguing process, it's dependant on the position of the sun.
• This is indicated by the sun marker, which will placed in 1 of the six positions around the board and indicates the direction of the sunlight.
• Any tree in sunlight earns its player light points, (The bigger the tree, the more points it earns.).
• However, trees cast shadows in the opposite direction of the sunlight, (The bigger the tree, the longer the shadow.). Any tree caught in a shadow does not earn light points. There is one exception, if the tree caught in the shadow is bigger than the tree casting the shadow, then the bigger tree will earn its full points.

So now that all the players have calculated their light points, play proceeds to the next phase.
Phase two.

• In this phase players can spend some or all of their light points to carry out various actions.
• Actions include planting seeds, growing trees or scoring trees. As well as acquiring seeds or trees.

​That's it for the basic rules. There are, however a few other rules to remember which are very important.

• Even though players will have multiple light points and can perform multiple actions. Only 1 action can originate from a space on the game board per turn. Therefore players cannot plant a seed and grow it into a tree in a single turn. Nor may they use a tree as a point of origin to plant a seed more than once per turn.
• Seeds and trees on the player board are not 'available' to use. Only the seeds and trees off of the board can be placed on to the main game board. Players must light points to purchase seeds and trees, in which case the are taken off of the player board and then become 'available' to be used.
• When a player grows a seed into a small tree, or increases the size of any tree; they replace whatever is on the game board with its relevant 'upgrade'. Thus a seed is grown into a small tree is removed and replaced with the small tree. The seed is returned to the player's board, (It does not go to the 'available area.). If there is space available on the player board, then it is discarded and permanently removed from the game.

​All of these rules basically serve one purpose - to slow the game down. And that makes complete sense, this is a game about growing trees after all. It forces players to think a few turns ahead.
It takes time to score points. A tree can only score points when it is a 'large' size. It takes 4 actions to plant a seed and then go to a small, medium and large tree. Then it takes a 5th action to score it.
Furthermore it will take more actions and light points to 'buy' the seed and 3 different sized trees from the player board in order to do this.

Overall

Photosynthesis is a peculiar beast: It's a little bit like a worker placement game with trees earning light points from their positioning and it's a little bit like an area control game, where larger trees will shut out surrounding smaller ones.

It's simple to learn but forces players to adopt a 'ent-like' mentality towards the games varied choices, strategies and occasional hard decisions. It's slow place means players cannot burn light point to do one thing quickly. Sometimes it's possible to speed events by sacrificing seeds or trees, but this can be tricky choice as it's permanent. I'm sure there are ties when it is prudent to do so. But slow and steady, that's the way to go.

I think all of this good and makes for a good game. I'm sure Treebeard would agree!

1st June 2019

Saturday as rolled around and we're blighted by a gaming drought.
There's no weekend RPGs at 'The Sovereigns' and no evening gaming at Matakishi's.

3 of did manage to meet up for a game of Wingspan at The Sovereigns though.

You can read my thoughts about it here.