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September '23 was a slightly quieter than the previous month with 30 total plays compared to 38. First plays however, has dropped from 10 to 4, which has gone from fairly high to fairly low first plays. First plays: 4 Games played: 30 Thursday 28th Simon's
Cascadia Tumbletown Sunday 24th Board Game Arena Can't Stop Roll'n Bump Bandido Railroad Ink Wingspan Just One Space Base The Number - First Play! Thursday 21st Aldershot The Crew Mission Deep Sea HeroQuest: Kellar's Keep - First Play! Friday 15th Board Game Arena Roll'n Bump Azul Just One Codex Naturalis Tranquillity Bandido Thursday 14th Aldershot Cascadia Point Salad Tumbletown Deep Sea Adventure Tuesday 12th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Love Letter Port Royal Roll for the Galaxy Sunday 10th Board Game Arena Can't Stop Roll'n Bump Loco Momo Just One Forbidden Island DIG UP Adventure - First Play! Thursday 7th Aldershot Deep Sea Adventure Ginkgopolis Sushi Roll Tuesday 5th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Jump Drive Machi Koro 2 Codex Naturalis Akropolis Sunday 3rd Board Game Arena Roll'n Bump Tiny Epic Defenders Railroad Ink Bandido Knarr - First Play!
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24th September 2023 Sunday evening is here again and it means we're all logged into Board Game Arena for a few hours of gaming fun. Your number is up with 'The Number' a highly minimalist and abstract number-driven (Obviously!) bluffing game. Caveat: we've only ever played this game digitally. What's in a game? Scoring board: In the physical version of the game, these would be dry erase boards. There's one in each player colour and every board shows the numbers 0-9. There's also a row of boxes along the bottom to track scoring. Most of these boxes also display scoring bonuses in small lettering at the top. They're also double-sided and the other side is used to track scores across the game's 2 rounds.  Number board: This would also be dry erase in the physical copy of the game. It's a small board with spaces to write 3 digits and comes in each player colour.  Following it's minimalist aesthetic, there's no art in The Number whatsoever. The game also uses no iconography unless you count numbers and that's all very easily understood. That's it for components. Quite possibly the smallest amount I've written about components! How's it play? Setup Players: Give each player the scoring and number boards in their player colour. On to play The objective in The Number is to secretly write down a 3-digit number, reveal it and hopefully score it. There's no turn order in the game and all players carry out their actions simultaneously. Furthermore each of the game's 2 rounds has 5 turns. The following steps occur in each turn Write: Each player secretly writes a 3-digit number on their number board and places it face-down in a central playing area.
 Blue player is eliminated because their 7 matches the red player's 7. Green is also eliminated because their 6 also matches one of the red player's numbers. Red is not eliminated and scores 4VPs (plus bonus) by virtue of having nothing to compare against..
 Since the red player scored with 476, they earn 4+2 = 6VPs. They must also cross off the numbers 4, 6 & 7. Next turn: Once all player have resolved the outcomes for the numbers they played, the next turn starts. Players should wipe those numbers off of their number board. Now players begin another Write step with a new 3-digit number on their number board, remembering they cannot use numbers they have crossed off. End of round: Once 5 turns have been completed, the game goes to end of round scoring. Players gain 1VP foe each number they used during the round. Then players total their score for the round and record it on the back of their scoring board.  The red player crossed off 7 numbers, thus earns 7VPs. Next Round: All numbers and crosses are wiped off of all player boards and a 2nd and final round begins. Endgame Once the 2nd round has been completed, all players total the scores they gained over the 2 rounds. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
The Number is about the most abstract game I've played and makes no attempt to shoehorn in any theme. It is indeed purely a numbers game! Whilst this is mechanically a simple game (I mean - players write a 3-digit number!), there's quite a lot going on under the surface here. I'd say the primary decision comes choosing whether to play a high or low number which is a clever trick as it creates tension between those 2 options. It also give players meaningful decisions to make. Players will also need to be wary of what numbers may get crossed off when choosing their numbers Obviously using a high number is beneficial because; provided it is not eliminated, it will earn more VPs, but if it is eliminated it earns nothing and will have also squandered a high value number. Playing a low number has the advantage of going later in the reveal step and consequently less chance of being eliminated. Additionally, a low number gives the player an opportunity to try and anticipate what numbers their opponents will play and eliminate them. However, players will need to be careful they don't accidently cross their own high value numbers when doing this. Finally, playing lower numbers only generates lower VPs. There's also higher level of play at work here. Players will need to pay attention what numbers their opponents have crossed off and conversely, which numbers they have available. Not only does it provide clues to what number they might choose next, it also shows which numbers their opponent cannot play and thus are safe to play themselves: E.g., if all opponents have used their '8's, then a '8' should be safe to play. All of this means that there's a whole lot of indirect interaction between players in The Number and a need to adapt to the numbers played as well as sharp eye to spot an openings when they appear. However, despite all of this interaction and decisions making, I did not find The Number an engaging game. Usually, theme is not important for me but here, I think it the lack of it here made me bounce off the game. It's just too abstract for my taste. One to avoid if you don't like abstract games or if theme is important to you. If that's not important to you: The Number is straightforward to learn and easy to pick up, it should work as a crossover game as the core concepts are pretty simple. With just 10 turns, it should also have a fairly quick play time and might prove a good filler game. If that's what you're looking for, The Number might do it for you. 21st September 2023 It's a Thursday night and we're in Aldershot for some gaming fun. HeroQuest - Kellar's Keep was the first expansion released for the original HeroQuest game back in the 1990's. When HeroQuest was re-issued a few years ago - so was Kellar's Keep. Kellar's Keep is an expansion pack (The first expansion I believe) for the HeroQuest game and as such, it more or less uses identical rules as HeroQuest, which I've already blogged about here. Everything I wrote there also applies here to Kellar's Keep. I'll not repeat that, instead I'll just talk about what's new or different What's new? The campaign Most significantly, the Kellar's Keep expansions adds a new 10-part campaign that builds upon the original HeroQuest and is meant as a follow up to the 14 part campaign presented there. Theoretically, players can carry over their characters from the original to Kellar's Keep. However, the rules state no items, weapons or potions, etc, are kept. This means that players are essentially starting fresh with what amounts are new characters which I felt was a little frustrating but also completely understandable from a game balancing perspective. Components Kellar's Keep also adds a number of extra miniatures to represent new (or more) monsters as well as some extra tiles for situations players will encounter. Also added are some cards for potions and like which players may purchase between adventures. Finally and very importantly, a pair of doors are also added to the game which changes one aspect of it quite a lot. What's changed? The 2 new doors represent the entrance into and exit out of a map. Instead of having the stairwell tile on the map. Players now enter the map through a door on the outside edge of the map and must find the exit door. Players can now only exit a map via the exit door, they cannot retreat back through the entrance. Once players are in, they're in! This can make the game a lot trickier, whereas before players could beat a hasty retreat if things turned bad for anything reason, now they're in it for the long haul regardless. This greatly increases the chances of a party wipe - which is bad! The other notable change is in difficulty; it definitely feels ramped up in Kellar's Keep. No doubt the designers took on board comments that adventures in the original were too easy! Players will find Kellar's Keep more challenging and will have more to think about. These are the significant changes that come to mind Overall
There's not much to write here: If you're expecting something different from the original HeroQuest or revolutionary, you won't find it in Kellar's Keep. If you enjoyed the original campaign however, then it's very likely you'll also enjoy this campaign. This is very much a case of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it!' 10th September 2023 It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming. Digging up stuff can be hard work and quite the chore, unless what you're digging up is precious treasure. In this case it becomes an adventure... A DIG UP Adventure to be precise! Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally. What's in a game? Cards: DIG UP Adventure uses only a deck of cards of which there are several types in the game.
 DIG UP Adventure employs a colourful cartoony art style that depicts a pulpish 1930s era of treasure hunting and well.... adventure. While gemstone cards have pretty nondescript and functional art, a series of evocative illustrations appear across the adventure cards. It both looks good and suits the game's lightweight game play. The game doesn't really make use of iconography, the closest would be the gemstone cards but their information is self-evident. Other than the idol and skeleton cards, all remaining cards relay their actions via text. Players should have no trouble understanding DIG UP Adventure. How's it play? Setup Deck: As per the rules for player count, it may be required to remove all gemstone cards of 1 or 2 colours, add all other cards into the deck, then shuffle it into a face down deck. Players: Give each player a player card matching a colour in the deck. This will the player's 'favourite' colour in the game. This is also public knowledge. Mines: Next, deal 9 cards face-down to each player. All players should then place them face-down in a 3x3 grid. This grid is 'numbered' 1-9 going from left to right and top to bottom. Finally each player should flip the centre (position '5') card face-up. This grid will constitute each players personal 'mine'.  A player's mine at game start along with the purple favourite token. Hand: Now deal 3 cards face-down to each player to form each player's hand. First player: Determine a starting player. On to play In DIG UP Adventure, each player has the objective of placing face-up gemstone cards in their personal mine. They want to do this by placing gemstones of their particular colour in the 9 spaces numerically from 1-9. The game uses a traditional turn order with the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left. The active player's turn consists of 3 phases. Play phase: During this phase, the active player may play up to 2 cards from their hand as per the following rules.
Draw phase: The active player draws cards until they have 3 in hand. Next player: Once the active player has finished their turn, play progresses to the player on their left. Endgame Play continues until any player has flipped the 9th and final card in their mine face-up, in which case the game continues until all players have had equal turns and then goes to scoring. First any player who had any face-down cards remaining must now flip them to face-up. Then players total the victory points (VPs) of all cards in their mine. The value, position and colour of gemstone cards in a player's mine will determine how many VPs those cards score according to following criteria.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Despite the game's relative simplicity, I liked DIG UP Adventure thematically. I found the concept of revealing the face-down cards by digging them up quite appealing. The game's art also helped convey the theme of adventuring and treasure hunting too. DIG UP Adventure is clearly a very light game. When making decisions players have a hand of 3 cards to choose from which can limit their options. Even more significant is that gemstone cards are all essentially no-brainer decisions: E.g., if a player has a gemstone card of their favourite colour in their hand, it's obvious that it should be placed into their mine. The same is more-or-less true of cards which would only score 1VP. Theoretically, a player could keep a scoring card back to stop other players swapping them out with adventure cards but they can be swapped out of a player's hand too and the game can also end quickly: It only takes 8 good card plays to trigger the endgame and players can do 2 per turn, in principle a game could end in 4 rounds! Players cannot actively place 'bad' cards that score 0 into their mine either (they can only be swapped in through the use of adventure cards) is even more limiting. Ultimately it means that meaningful decisions come in the form of using adventure cards well - if and when players get them. Stealing useful cards from opponents is obviously a good tactic for example, or hitting them with skeletons. There's also arguably a higher level of play in watching what opponents are doing and denying them useful cards. Even so, there's still a degree of luck in what and when players get adventure cards. Players will also need to adapt to what they draw and what gets played against them. While players will be working towards the perfect score which in this case is (9x3) 27VPs, it will be elusive to reach, especially since other players, either by choice or coincidence will be interfering. For me, DIG UP Adventure was something of a frustrating experience. It's a game which involves a lot of luck and a lot of 'take that' from the adventure cards. A little of both or lot of one is fine but a lot of both just doesn't do it for me. However, I'm probably overthinking it. I don't think that this is aimed at dedicated gamers. While I think it could work as a filler, it seems to me with its quick to learn gameplay and easily relatable theme, it feels more like a family game, especially with it's rambunctious 'take that' gameplay that will probably appeal to young players. One to play with the kids I think. 3rd September 2023 It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming diversions. Knarr: A type of Norse wooden ship which was used for trading and exploration. Knarr the game, can you guess what it's about? Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally. What's in a game? Board: This is a rectangular, landscape orientated board which depicts what I would imagine is a Viking coastal settlement - which fits with the game's theme.
 Game board. Player board: Each player board (Ship sheet.) comes in a player-colour and is double-sided, displaying a 'normal' and 'advanced' side. They are unusually shaped (looking a bit like sails) with 3 circular indentations on both the left and right sides which are used to slot tokens. The left side is for recruit or 'crew' tokens and the right for silver bracelet or 'trade' tokens. Along the top are 3 vertical tracks or columns which will display 1 or more of the game's resources. Along the bottom, it displays the each player's starting resources.  A player's personal 'ship sheet'. Cards: Broadly speaking, Knarr uses 2 types of cards, destination cards (which are landscape) and Viking cards.
 Type A cards.
 And type B.
 Viking cards looks great with their clear detail and bright colour. Tokens: Knarr makes use of several types of token.
Knarr features 2 types of artwork, that which appears on the Viking cards and that which appears on the destination cards. The Viking cards use a kind of line-art illustration style with high quality illustrations that is clear and colourful with detailed and interesting looking characters. In slight contrast, an excellent painted art style is used for destination cards. Depicting a variety of vistas and landscapes with evocative artwork using moody, distinct palettes. All-in-all, Knarr has top notch presentation. There are a few icons used throughout the game and the optional rules introduce some more but they are mostly self-explanatory or easily understood, I imagine they will be quickly learned. The game also uses colour-coded icons on the bottom of Viking cards to increase accessibility. It's good to this done and shows that care and thought has been put into the game.  Destination cards feature excellent, evocative artwork. Note: The 'normal' version without variant cards was played. How's it play? Setup Cards: Sort the cards into their 3 types (decks A, B and Viking deck) and shuffle each into face-down stacks.
On to play Players will be playing Viking cards in order to then spend the resources on those cards, this can have a number of results. Viking cards can then be spent to acquire destination cards which will in turn, give them further resources and Reputation/VPs. Knarr follows a typical turn with the active player acting before play progresses to the player on their left. A player's turn consists of 2 phases. Reputation: The active player increases their VP score according to their position on the reputation tracker. This will be 0-5 points. Action: This is where the bulk of the game takes place and the active player must perform one of the following 2 actions plus they may choose to also perform the bonus trading action.
 A destination card is placed 'above' the ship sheet to extent its 3 columns upwards and add resources to each.
Endgame Once any player reaches 40 VPs on the score tracker, the game end is triggered and play proceeds until the end of the round and all player have had equal turns. Points are tallied and the highest score wins. Overall
While Knarr is something of an abstract game but it's also fairly strong thematically. Players will be recruiting Vikings with specific skills to utilise and then sending to faraway lands to either explore or settle and create trade routes. The game play matches that well. Gameplay-wise, Knarr sits in a sweet spot of having easily learned mechanics (At its core there are only 2 types of action in Knarr.) while also providing players will some nuanced decisions to make. Recruiting is likely the most common action a player will take and there will be several considerations to make even though they will only have a choice of 2 cards in their hand at any one time. Obviously the resources Viking cards provide the player is vital, increasing reputation for example will create a consistent way to generate VPs, gaining tokens will provide flexibility etc but colour is also important. Creating a large column of a single colour can generate a lot when it's activated provided it is activated. Sometimes however, a player might want to hedge their bets instead though. Building up a column in a single colour will also probably limit a player's choices when it comes to gaining destination cards. The other area where colour becomes important is when drafting Viking cards. A player may decide to play a card of a certain colour just to draft a card in that colour's slot on the board - although a recruit token may be spent to mitigate this. Exploration is the other action that a player may select and it comes with it's own choices. Firstly, the player must spend Viking cards in order to acquire a destination card. This alone can be a bit of a tricky decision as it will probably entail losing cards that have proven to be useful. Next the player will need to consider what the rewards will be. The instant rewards are pretty straightforward in what they provide but the 3 trading columns are a different kettle of fish. Similarly to the columns of Viking cards, the columns on the player board and destination cards can be activated to gain their respective resources. However, the resources on the rightmost column are expensive (in that they cost 3 silver bracelet tokens to activate), so theoretically, loading up the leftmost column is the most efficient way to trade for goods but it's likely that the cards won't be so obliging. Once again players will decide how build up the columns and this will be affected by which destination cards are available to draft. Ultimately, players will need to balance the efficiency of concentrating on a smaller number of columns with need to diversify for the purposes of flexibility. This will require a mix of planning and exploiting opportunities as they arise. There's not much to fault here, at times I did find it somewhat frustrating that I couldn't draft the Viking cards I wanted but I think sometimes that it's par for the course for a drafting game. I also feel that perhaps the reputation track and its mechanics are a bit over strong. Otherwise, Knarr is an accessible, fairly quick to play drafting and engine-building game that presents players will tricky, meaningful decisions. It also has a strong Viking theme and equally strong style and presentation. If this appeals to you, then Knarr is worth giving a try. August's '23's numbers are up compared to July. Games played went from 35 to 38, however, first plays went from 7 to 10 and while it's quite a lot it's actually only the 3rd highest new plays ever, even so, it's still nearly 1 first play every 3 days! First plays: 10 Games played: 38 Thursday 31st Aldershot
Kingdomino Origins Isle of Cats Tuesday 29th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Bandido Deep Dive - First Play! It's a wonderful world Sunday 27th Board Game Arena Can't Stop Loco Momo Tranquillity Just One Wingspan Bandido Thursday 24th Aldershot Fluxx Scout Burger Boss Tuesday 22nd round Simon's War of The Ring: The One Ring - First Play! Monday 21st on Board Game Arena Martian Dice Can't Stop Nidavellir Roll'n Bump Just One Railroad Ink Tranquillity Color Flush - First Play! Sunday 20th round Matakishi's - 1st Gaming Extravaganza Machi Koro 2 Durian The Crew: Mission Deep Sea Parks Bandido Saturday 19th round Matakishi's - 1st Gaming Extravaganza The Pursuit of Happiness - First Play! Kingmaker Point Salad Machi Koro 2 Sunday 13th Board Game Arena Can't Stop Sushi Go Party Via Magica Spots Just One Nidavallir Tranquillity Sunday 13th The Sovereigns Parks Oh Captain - First Play! Saturday 12th Board Game Arena Martian Dice Tranquillity Bandido Thursday 10th Simon's Flash Point: Fire Rescue - First Play! Dorfromantik - First Play! Tuesday 8th The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club Deep Sea Adventure Codex Naturalis Kingdomino Origins - First Play! Sunday 6th Board Game Arena Lucky Numbers Can't Stop Roll'n Bump None Shall Pass Just One Railroad Ink Setup - First Play! Friday 4th Simon's Zombicide: Undead or Alive - First Play! |
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