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Gaming Blog

Iunu

31/10/2019

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5th October 2019

It's been a Saturday evening of gaming goodness at Matakishi's place.

It's been an evening of small games.
The fourth and final game of the night is 'Iunu', which is actually pronounced as er... 'uh wah nu'.

Iunu is a card game set in the ancient time of the legendary Pharaohs of Egypt. With deserts and the Nile and the pyramids... or at least some four-sided dice.

What's in a game?
All the art on the cards is a clean and smooth almost minimalist style that is quite appealing. I guess it's also designed to resemble hieroglyphs?
Components include:
  • Deck of cards: There are 2 types of card, citizen cards and afterlife cards.
  • Money tokens.
  • Bread tokens.
  • 3 four-sided dice.
Picture
Picture

How's it play?
So we begin with setup.
  • Shuffle the citizen deck and deal 4 to each player.
  • Deal 5 more cards from the citizen deck in a row. This row is called 'the forum'. The remaining citizen cards form the citizen deck.
  • Shuffle and deal 5 afterlife cards in a face-down deck next to the citizen deck.
  • Give some currency to each player.
Now we're ready to go.
  • The starting player rolls the 3 four-sided dice.
  • The active player must play a card from their hand.
  • The active player may choose to play a 2nd card, provided it is identical to the first card played. They must pay to do this.
  • Resolve any special ability on the card(s) just played.
  • The active player then places 2 cards from their hand into the forum and takes 3 cards from the forum in their hand. If they has played 2 cards earlier, then they take an additional card from the citizen deck into their hand (Hand size is always 4 cards.).
  • Finally, a card is played from the citizen deck into the forum (To replace the extra card the player took.).
  • Play progresses to the left.
  • Once all players have had a turn,  the 'first player' moves to the left, who rolls the dice again to begin a new round.
  • Once the citizen deck is depleted, the game ends. Scores are tallied, highest score wins.
Afterlife cards
There's no mention of afterlife cards, what do they do?
Well when a 'priest' citizen card is played, the active player take a afterlife card and keeps it face-down in their area.
Afterlife cards provide the opportunity to gain extra points during scoring.
Players can only have 1 afterlife card each. If a player acquires more afterlife cards, they draw another one and keep one of the two. The other one is shuffled back into the afterlife deck.
The dice
Dice are rolled every round, what for?
Certain citizen cards make use of these vaguely pyramid shaped dice.
For example:
The 'noble' card will earn the active player currency equal the result of all 3 dice (The dices' values are lowered after this.).
The 'baker' citizen card can buy up to 3 bread tokens at a cost equal to the highest single dice.
Bread tokens
Talking of bakers, what do bread tokens do?
After acquiring bread tokens, the are placed on citizen cards that have been played to increase their value in the endgame scoring.
Additionally, bread tokens on your 'farmer' citizen cards will protect them from being 'enticed away' by pesky 'soldier' citizen cards.

Endgame
Once the citizen deck is depleted and all players have had an equal number of turns, we go into scoring. There are 5 ways to score:
  • Each citizen card is worth points, the more important the citizen (In the social hierarchy.), the more points the card is worth. Thus the 'Pharaoh' card is worth is more than a farmer.
  • Bread: Every card that has a bread token on it will score points. Generally cards further down the social hierarchy score more for bread (I guess they need it more?).
  • Majority: There are 9 types of citizen card in the game, whoever has the most of each type score points for it. The scoring her is the exact opposite of the social hierarchy scoring. Because their are 9 'farmer' citizen cards in the game, who ever has the majority of 'farmer' cards will score 9 points. Conversely there's only 1 'Pharaoh' card and it's only worth 1 point.
  • Currency: Each 3 of the currency scores a point.
  • Afterlife card: Points can be scored provided the conditions (If any.) can be met on the card.

Overall
Iuni is a game with some interesting mechanics.
Having to return 2 cards to the forum during every turn forces players into making some hard decisions, because not only are you discarding cards which may be useful, you're also giving other players the opportunity to take them.
The dice are also an interesting idea and not something I've seen before in this style of game. The randomness can throw a real 'curve ball' into players' strategies.

Once players have gotten their heads around the slightly unusual way the game works, it's quite quick to play and would be good as a filler or finisher game.
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Campy Creatures

31/10/2019

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5th October 2019

Gaming night at Matakishi's is underway.

The third game of the night was 'Campy Creatures'.

Put yourselves in the shoes of a 'mad scientist'. Misunderstood, never trusted and unloved. But there's a reason why the mad scientist is the way they are and why they kidnap innocent people. It's to stop those other pesky mad scientist from doing it first!!

Campy Creatures is a blind bidding game where you bid to capture teenagers and other hapless victims and put them into sets in order to score points.

What's in a game?
All of the cards in this game are nicely illustrated with art that wouldn't look out of place on posters for the 'creature feature' movies that this game is emulating.
  • Bidding decks: These decks consist of monster cards with a value of 0-8. There is a deck for each player
  • Victim cards: These are the hapless victims that your monsters will kidnap... err liberate. There are 3 types of victim and also 'assistant' cards.
  • Location cards: These will confer some sort of bonus on to whoever acquires them 
  • Game board: Used to tally scores, store location cards and break ties.

Picture
Picture
How's it play?
As always we begin with set up.
  • A bidding deck is given to each player.
  • The location deck is created by randomly using 3 location cards. A number of assistant cards will be added in as 2 small stacks between the 3 location cards. all of these are kept in a deck face-down on the game board.
  • Finally the victim deck is created and shuffled. Then a number of cards are turned face up.
Then play can begin.
Campy Creatures uses blind bidding. The highest bid gets to go first and pick the victim card of their choice.
  • Players keep all of their individual deck in their hand at all times.
  • Players can choose any one of their monsters to play. The card is played face down. Once all players have put a card down, all cards are revealed and then resolved.
  • Generally, the card with the highest number goes first. However, there are special abilities that can change things. Some special abilities a triggered when cards are revealed, some when a victim is captured.
  • Thus the highest score gets 1st pick, 2nd highest score gets 2nd pick and so on until the lowest score has to take the last card.
  • A new turn begins and new cards from the victim deck are dealt.
  • Any cards used for bidding remain face-up on the table, they cannot be used again in this round.
  • When the victim deck is depleted, the round is over. The 1st location card is revealed and will have a specific symbol on it. The player who has acquired cards with the most of the matching symbol will acquire the location card (And whatever bonus it entails.).
  • The round is scored, all victims (Except assistants.) are returned to form a new victim deck, the extra assistants from location deck is added to the victim deck.
  • The next round begins.

Endgame​
Campy Creatures is played over a total of 3 rounds. After the final round, final scores are tallied, highest score wins.
Picture
Picture

Overall
Campy Creatures is a quick and interesting game to play.
This is down to the special abilities on the monster cards. They can really throw a spanner into the works (And player's plans.). Special abilities include cancelling other cards special abilities, acquiring 2 cards instead of 1, forcing someone to discard a card they captured etc.

Learning to watch other players is important. Looking at what cards they have collected gives you the chance to anticipate what other cards they will want. This means you have the opportunity to mess with them! It gives the game an extra level of depth, which without the game would be too simple.

Even so, with so few special abilities (That are identical for all players.), after prolonged play, the game could become 'samey'. But as a occasional filler game, Campy Creatures is a good game.
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Honshu - 02

31/10/2019

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5th October 2019

Gaming night at Matakishi's continues.

The second game of the night was 'Honshu'
Read my blog about it here.
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Sushi Roll - 03

31/10/2019

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5th October 2019

Saturday evening at Matakishi's for game night.

No RPG today, so we played several smaller games.

We begun with 'Sushi Roll'.
Read my blog ​here.
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Tiny Epic Galaxies - 03

31/10/2019

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1st October 2019

Tuesday evening has rolled round and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking.

We played 'Tiny Epic Galaxies'.
Read my blog about it here.
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Loot - 08

30/10/2019

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29th September 2019

Sunday gaming at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking comes to a close.

The fourth and final game of the day was 'Loot'
My thoughts about it are here. 
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Port Royal - 09

30/10/2019

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29th September 2019

Gaming day at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues.

The third game of the day was 'Port Royal'.
My blog about it is here.
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Sushi Roll - 02

30/10/2019

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29th September 2019

Sunday afternoon at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues.

The second game of the day is 'Sushi Roll'.
Read my blog about it here.​ 
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Isle of Skye - 02

30/10/2019

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29th September 2019

Sunday afternoon has rolled around and we're at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking.

No 50 Fathoms as it is currently on hold. So board games are the order of the day.

The afternoon began with 'Isle of Skye'.
You can read my blog about it here.
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Machi Koro Legacy - Games 6-8

30/10/2019

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28th September 2019

We're at Matakishi's on a Saturday night, this can only mean it's time for games.

We continued our playing of Machi Koro Legacy and managed to play 3 games. Leaving only 2 games to complete in the future.
You can read my thoughts on Machi Koro Legacy here.
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