26th September 2022 It's a Monday and we're round Simon's for Firefly: The Game. It 'aint' the time to misbehave, it's actually time to play a Sandbox board game in the world of the cult short lived sci-fi show, Firefly. Now with the requisite joke quote out of the way, it's time to get down to business. What's in a game?
I don't usually talk about this because it has no impact on the game itself but Firefly: The game has a huge footprint, i.e., it takes up a lot of table space. Firefly: The Game has a lot of components and I mean a lot, generally they're are all good quality. Tokens, cards and boards are what you'd expect from a modern. Yes, the Dice are plastic but also with well rounded corners so that's good. I like the paper money too. The models are cool, it's a bit bland that all the player ships are the same firefly class models but otherwise they're good quality, the Alliance cruiser is definitely the standout components. A mixture of photos and illustrations are used throughout the game which is a wise move. Often, games that use a lot of stock photos in place of art look quite cheap. Here though, photos are mostly reserved for portraits of characters from the show so it works well enough in this context. Despite the game's level of detail, the iconography is kept to a minimum and isn't overwhelming. Most game information is relayed through text. Even so, the amount of events, tasks and the like that occur in the game will keep players referring to the rulebook. How's it play? Setup
On to play Firefly: The Game doesn't have set objective, instead it has differing story cards, one of which will be used during a game. Each story card will have a series of goals that must be completed and whoever does them all first, wins! Firefly: The Game follows the usual turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.
Endgame Whichever player completes the final goal on the story card first... wins the game! Endgame
Firefly: The game works hard to replicate the feel of the show and to a certain extent, it does this very well. It successfully captures the feel of hustling round a system, wheeling and dealing, dodging authorities and making profit. All of this though, is only half of what the TV show was, the show was also about the family you make and the stories they collectively create, stuff that's quite hard to replicate in a game and is missing here since players are each playing separate crews. Having said that, there's definitely a bit of emergent gameplay and some elements of storytelling going on here but his brings me to one of my bugbears about the game. When you're playing it feels a bit like a single-player game that happens to have other players in it. There's a little bit of interaction here and there that comes from sending the Alliance or Reavers after other players or trading and crew poaching but it doesn't feel significant. Firefly: The Game is sandbox game that appears to offer a lot of choice, is a lot of game with a lot of rules and rules exceptions and also a lot of components which I feel will be off putting to more casual gamers. A fan of the show who isn't a gamer will probably find Firefly: The Game hard going at the start. Despite the breadth of rules, the game is fairly straightforward in what it asks players to do. One of my other bugbears is that players will often find themselves delivering something, this might be legal or illegal or performing a crime/misbehaving. All of this will involve travelling around and risking running into the Alliance or Reavers or other obstacles and so on. The consequence of this is that because the game is so single-player driven that ultimately, it's a race to complete the goals as efficiently as possible and even though it's meant to be have open sandbox gameplay, players are being somewhat funnelled through the game by those goals. I.e., the game-winning goals are all the same, it's how those goals are achieved that will differ between player. The game also has a fairly long playtime, we played a beginner story card with a low player count and it still took 2 hours. Although, to be fair, that's not really uncommon with this style of play so it comes with the territory but be prepared to commit a few hours to a playthrough. If you're a fan of the Firefly TV show and are prepared to prepared to invest some effort learning the rules time to play, you'll probably enjoy this. Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about Firefly: The Game overall, it was a fun experience and my decisions generally felt meaningful, it also fairly involved and having players run around dong their own thing also felt a little unengaging. However, if someone else wanted to play it, I wouldn't object.
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25th September 2022 Sunday is here again and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness. Sea Salt & Paper is a pun that plays on sea salt & pepper in this quirkily ocean and err... origami themed set collecting card game. Caveat: We've only ever played Sea Salt & Paper digitally. What's in a game?
Sea Salt & Paper makes use of a genuinely unique art style which looks like the creators constructed origami models themed after the game such as mermaids, crabs or penguins etc and then photographed them. Or perhaps high quality renders have been produced in a computer art program. Either way, the game has what I think a fantastic, eye catching theme, colourful and of course, they get to use the Sea Salt & Paper gag. The game uses 10 colours for cards - and that's a lot. Fortunately each colour has a unique icon associated with it which a handy and welcome accessibility aid. The downside is that Sea Salt & Paper has quite a lot of icons, there's about 4 icons for each type of card. Luckily most of them are intuitive or fairly obvious. I don't think it's too difficult to learn may be off putting during early plays. How's it play? Setup
On to play Sea Salt & Paper is played over a varying number of rounds until a scoring target has been met. Furthermore, rounds will have a varying length and after a certain point, each round can be ended by any player. The game follows the usual turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progress to the person on their left. There are 3 actions a player can perform in their turn.
Endgame There are 2 ways Sea Salt & Paper can end. Firstly and least likely, if a player manages to acquire 4 mermaid cards... they win! Otherwise, the game has a endgame scoring target, which is 30-40 VPs depending on player count. When this target is reached during scoring it triggers the game end and players calculate their final total VPs. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Broadly speaking, Sea Salt & Paper is fairly straightforward; collect sets and play duos. There are several ways to collect sets, including based on colours. Players will often be faced with various on which card to take and optimisation is key here. Although players will also need to adapt to circumstances as they may need to deal with cards they might not initially want. Sea Salt & Paper however, puts some quite unusual and unique mechanics into play that have unusual impact on the game and the way some of these mechanics synch up is interesting. I'm struggling to recall another card game in which cards that are played and cards in hand score equally. It's very important here though since it ties in with the mechanic that allows players to bet on 'winning' the round. When a player chooses to announce 'last chance', they'll know what cards other players have played but they won't know what they've kept in their hand. This means there's always an element of push-your-luck because the announcer will never know what others have kept back. Canny players may decide to not play duo cards in an attempt to lure others into a false sense of security but the trade off is that they won't get utilise those cards' benefits. There's also a higher level of play about noting what cards other players take and responding. Drawing cards blindly gives the player a useful ability of using one of them to cover a card in one of the discard piles, potentially denying it to another player if you think they want it. While Sea Salt & Paper players has a moderately quick playtime and is mostly easy to learn, it's a bit fiddly when it comes to scoring. Not only do players have to score both played cards and ones in hand but sometimes they need to discard their scoring and score again... but differently thanks to someone triggering 'Last Chance'. I'm not sure the the gameplay this push-your-luck mechanic adds to the game is worth the extra hassle it causes with scoring. Sea Salt & Paper is also seems like something of a slow burn when it comes to gameplay which boils down to choosing which card to take and whether to play duos or not. It can feel a little unexciting or unengaging. Mechanically, there's some fun things going on with Sea Salt & Paper but the game didn't quite grab me in the times that we played it but as I said, it could just be a slow burn that requires a few more plays to grasp. I wouldn't object to trying it again. 20th September 2022 Tuesday is here again and we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns in Woking. Recruit and assemble your citizens (Or heroes really.), build domains and vanquish foul enemies in this fantasy adventure themed dice rolling and tableau building game. What's in a game?
Component quality is the usual good quality you'd expect from a modern game like Valeria: Card Kingdoms. Card quality is fine as are the card tokens and the player boards. Wooden tokens for resources are always a welcome addition. The dice are plastic and feel a little 'square' but they have indented numbers which is good. Valeria: Card kingdoms features good art throughout. Cards are well illustrated with colourful chunky pictures of heroic citizens and intriguing domains, my favourite though, is the artwork for monsters that brashly depict menacing enemies. There's quite a lot of iconography throughout the game, from types of heroes and monsters, to terrain types and ability icons. For the most part, they are fairly intuitive - matching the roles on citizen cards to the requirements on domain cards is obvious but some of the abilities, particularly on domain cards are a bit esoteric and will require some looking up in the rulebook. I don't think it's especially beginner or casual friend but by no means is it a gamebreaker either. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Valeria: Card Kingdoms, players will be rolling dice to activate cards to accumulate resources which in turn can be spent to acquire more citizen cards, domains and monsters. The game follows the usual turn structure of the active player taking their actions before player progresses to the player on their left. During a turn, the following phases occur.
Endgame Play in Valeria: Card Kingdoms continues until any 1 of 3 game ending criteria is met, which are:
A player can earn VPs from a variety of sources.
Points are tallied, highest score wins! Overall
I'll start by saying I quite like the implementation of the fantasy theme both in presentation and execution. It is slightly abstract but gathering a band of heroes to go off and fight monsters and build domains feels good. Like many engine and tableau building games, there's a distinct early game in Valeria: Card Kingdoms about players building up their tableau, in this case with citizen cards and a late game about gaining increased resources to acquire monster and domain cards as well as VPs. However, because players get 2 actions during their turn, there's some opportunity for optimised actions, card synchronicity and thus meaningful decisions. Getting the right citizen card can lead to getting a domain card for example. Getting a good domain card early can be a big boon dependant on its ability. This means there will be a fairly constant flow of cards being drafted from the central area. Players will find themselves competing to get the cards they want as quickly as possible and is the game's primary form of interaction between players. In fact: Thanks to every card having an ability that can be activated in other players' turns and also being able to read the dice both individually and as a pair making card activations more common, means the game generally flows quite rapidly. Players will often have something happening outside of their turn. Like many drafting games, there's a higher level of play here that comes from watching what other players are doing and potentially trying to stymie them. The addition of duke cards messes with this though, providing players with unique and unpredictable objectives. Valeria: Card Kingdoms is a solid iteration of the dice rolling, card activating, tableau building game style and players of those games will be on familiar ground here. To compliment this, there's also a couple of innovative touches to do with reading the dice and card activating that make the game fresh. Despite its brisk playtime, the game does has a fairly involved setup process and also an abundance of iconography which makes for a slightly steep learning curve. Don't that put you off though. Valeria: Card Kingdoms is well worth a try. 18th September 2022 We're on Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness. Use your deductive reasoning to... Break the code, a puzzle-like game of logic and elimination. Caveat: We've only ever played Break the Code digitally. What's in a game?
There's little to no art in the game and to be honest, the game is a fairly abstract almost puzzle-like game that doesn't really need it. Presentation wise, it's clear and easy to understand. Break the Code also has no iconography unless you count numbers. There's nothing here that would prove an obstacle to players. How's it play? Setup The setup for Break the Code differs some what between a 2 player count and a 3-4 player count. The setup here is for 3 players.
On to play The objective in Break the Code is to deduce the value and colours of the 5 tiles in the central area before anyone else. This will be done by asking other players questions (Using the questions on the question cards.) about their own tiles and then by matter of elimination discovering which tiles are in the central area. Break the Code uses a traditional turn order with the active player resolving their turn before play progresses to their left. On their turn, the active player can choose 1 of 2 actions.
Player count There are a couple of differences in setup and player according to player count.
Endgame If all question cards have been used and no one has made a correct guess, all players lose! Additionally, if all player make incorrect guesses, then again, all players lose. When a player makes a correct guess, the end of the current round is played out, the game ends and they are the winner. There is a chance however, that other players may also make a correct guess with their last action. In which case, all players who guessed correctly are declared winners. Overall
There's not much to say about the mechanics of Break the Code, it's a very straightforward game that is essentially a multiplayer puzzle; ask questions and eliminate extraneous numbers until you are left with only the correct numbers. Since questions are solely based on the available cards it means there can be a need for a bit of lateral thinking and trying to gleam information from awkward questions. I suspect that if players got to ask the questions they wanted, it would end a game quickly or break it! It's also vital to listen to answers given to other players' questions. Players first eliminate their own tiles which leaves them with about 10-12 more tiles to eliminate. They must cross-reference multiple answers to get the information they need. E.g., They may learn a player's first tile is a black number, then they may learn it's a odd number, then they may finally learn it's a 1 and so on. Conversely, players will sometimes get a lot of information quickly, e.g., learning the tile in the E column is green means it must be a 5 and that it is also the highest number a player has behind their screen. It's this kind of reasoning that drives Break the Code and if that sort of fairly heavy puzzle orientated game play doesn't appeal to you, then this is one to avoid. Myself; I quite like puzzles but I'm not so sure about a multiplayer one, it's not something I feel lends itself well to multiplayer. I will add that we did play it online and over voice chat which could make it feel somewhat disjointed compared to face-to-face.. Having said that, I did enjoy Break the Code but found once I had 'broken' the code, there was very little motivation to go back to it another time. 8th September 2022 It's a Thursday evening, it's Aldershot, it's time for some gaming goodness. Channel your inner Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Kevin McCloud as you attempt to build your... Dream Home in this drafting, set collecting game. What's in the game?
Component quality is the usual good standard found in most modern board games. The cards are fine, the board and tokens are constructed from sturdy cardboard. The first player token is chunky and made from wood, it's obviously a bit of a gimmick but it's the kind of gimmick I'm a sucker for! Dream Home has fantastic artwork throughout. The Illustration used on the home board is good, however, the standouts are the cards and tokens which feature excellent colourful and distinct depictions of home spaces. Interestingly, many cards will feature children hidden among the furniture. This is more than just a aesthetic choice which will be explained below. Most information is conveyed via text and there's no iconography that needs learning. How's it play? Setup This is the setup for 4-player games, in game with lower player counts, some cards will be discarded after being placed on the game board.
On to play Dream Home is played over exactly 12 rounds and players will be putting room cards on to their personal game board to build their home and gaining resource cards. This is done by drafting pairs of cards from the same column, that is, 1 resource and 1 room card - except for the leftmost space, in which case they acquire a room card and the first player token. Turn order is slightly different to the usual here: The player with the first player token goes first and play progresses to the left until all players have taken their turn. However, it's possible that the first player token will change hands during a round, consequently, in the following round a new turn order would be established. During their turn, the active player takes the following actions.
Endgame Dream Home is played over 12 rounds and after the last round, the game goes to scoring. There are various avenues to earning VPs.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. In the case of a tie, the player with home board showing the most children on the cards wins! Overall
Dream Home strikes a balance between ease of play and depth. Players will be faced with the conundrum of having to build outwards before building upwards. It might not seem like much but it's unlikely that players will get all the cards they need at the time they need them. The larger room sets will score more points per card but unless a player gets the right cards at the right time, it's likely that they will have to leave gaps when collecting bigger sets, which can make it tricky to build upwards. The drafting mechanic also provides players with a meaningful choice. Again, it's unlikely that players will always get the 2 cards they want, often they will need to compromise on which resource and room card to take as well as adapt to circumstances as they are occur. Finally, the first player mechanic is also interesting. Gaining the first player token feels costly because the player only gets a room card but it can play dividends in the following turn. There will times when going first can be extremely useful. Conversely going last can be painful as the last player will only ever have a choice of 2 columns to pick from. None of this is ever too complicated, the sets are never too big and intricacies that can arise from syncing resource cards such as décor cards with room cards is never too complex. Dream Home also doesn't outstay its welcome. Being played over 12 rounds keeps it moving along briskly and provides a fairly concise experience, unless you're playing with a sufferer of analysis paralysis! It's fair to say that Dream Home is a lightweight and accessible iteration of the 'draft-and-place' multiple components, set collecting mechanic seen in quite a few games. This accessibility along with it's top-notch presentation means that it's probably a good game to play with younger participants or more casual gamers. For me though: While I feel that Dream Home does provide a good experience for younger and more casual gamers, I'm not sure it has long term appeal to more dedicated gamers. I enjoyed the game but it's fairly simplistic nature means I'm not sure how often I'd like to play it. The gaming totals for August '22 are below. Less sessions were played in August, but the variety of games was higher, no doubt partially due to 12 first plays! Total games: 45 Different games: 35 First plays: 12 Tuesday 2nd at The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club
Wingspan Thursday 4th at Simon's Cascadia - First Play! Switch & Signal - 4 Friday 5th at Aldershot The Crew: Mission Deep Sea - 32 Heckmeck - 12 Trails - First Play! Sunday 7th on Board Game Arena Regicide - 9 Splendor - 19 Cloud City - 14 Stella - Dixit Universe - 10 Railroad Ink - 33 Can't Stop - 21 Lucky Numbers - 37 Tuesday 9th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club Isle of Cats - 2 Thursday 11th at Aldershot Dungeon Decorators - First Play! Love Letter - 59 Sunday 14th on Board Game Arena Parks - 11 Potion Explosion - 13 Loco Momo - 11 Love Letter - 60 Can't Stop - 22 Lucky Numbers - 38 Tuesday 16th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club Jaws - First Play! Wednesday 17th August - Simon's Raiders of Scythia - First Play! Thursday 18th at Aldershot Heroquest - First Play! Saturday 20th on Board Game Arena Tranquility - First Play! Race for the Galaxy - 17 Sunday 21st on Board Game Arena Forbidden Island - 13 Noah - First Play! Chromino - 2 Codex Naturalis - 23 Love Letter - 61 Martian Dice - 20 Lucky Numbers - 39 Friday 26th at Farnborough Heckmeck - 13 King of Tokyo - 9 Jump Drive - 10 Saturday 27th on Board Game Arena Dungeon Twister - First Play! Sunday 28th on Board Game Arena Burgle Bros - First Play! Carcassonne - 9 Loco Momo - 12 Railroad Ink - 34 Can't Stop - 23 Lucky Numbers - 40 Tuesday 30th at The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club Scout - First Play! The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine - First Play! |
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