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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
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.
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My massive backlog of games to talk about didn't lessen in 2022, only got worse. 2022 was a big year for playing games, bigger than 2021, which I thought was big enough! Below is the breakdown of games I played in '22 versus '21. 2022 Number of different games played: 139. Of which were new (To me.): 68. Total number of gaming sessions: 541. 2021 Number of different games played: 78. Of which were new (To me.): 46. Total number of gaming sessions: 333. Why have the numbers gone up so much? Two factors, 2022 saw the end of lockdowns and a full year of playing on Board Game Arena where not only could 5 or 6 games be easily played in an evening, some games could be played multiple times per session. Most played games:
Lucky Numbers, with it's simple, unpredictable, luck based and strategy mechanics replaced Lover Letter as our regular 'finisher' on Sunday nights. Now on to the industry-defining, glittering, 3 Spellcasters & a Dwarf annual game awards.
These are for games I first played in 2022, not necessarily games that were published in 2022. Game of the year: Cascadia Cascadia is a tile-placement game with fairly simple rules but a wealth of options, strategies and approaches to scoring points. Players have to manage and optimise multiple scoring vectors that use tiles and tokens but rarely do they get to draft both the tiles and tokens they need, forcing them into meaningful, compromising decisions. What more could you want? Disappointment of the year: Terminator: Dark Fate The Card Game This co-operative deck-builder had some interesting ideas but also seemed broken, so much so that we struggled to make any headway into the game. It felt like the game needed more playtesting and balancing. Surprise of the year: Akropolis Another tile-laying game! This time one with actual figurative multiple levels of gameplay! Simple rules, lots of decision and a quick playtime make this game a cracking package. Honourable mention: Parks For a long stretch of 2022 I thought that this worker-placement, resource-management game was going to be the game of the year until Cascadia came along. With limited workers spaces along the hiking trail, players are faced with trying to anticipate their opponents actions while also prioritising their own and gather the resources to buy point scoring cards. Parks also has some of the best components and artwork I've seen in a game for a while. 21st August 2022 It's Sunday again and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness. So there's this Noah guy who has to put groups of animals on to his ark but it turns out there's way more species than anyone would have thought! He's quite busy now and has instructed his staff (The players!) to load the more mundane animals on to the ark. How should the players do this? Through the crucible of competitive play of course! Caveat: we've only ever played this game digitally. What's in a game?
Colourful high quality artwork is used throughout Noah and the animal cards in particular look good and depict their subject matter well and clearly. There's not much else to say about it other than it's a style clearly aimed at younger players. There's about half a dozen icons used in the game, the movement icons are pretty self-explanatory, as are the tears. The remaining 5 or so icons for card ability are a little small and will probably have to be looked up in the rules until learned. I can't imagine it being a problem. How's it play? Setup
On to play Noah is played over 3 rounds, the objective in all 3 rounds is for players to empty their hands as quickly as possible and thus, score as few points as possible. This is done by playing animal cards on to the ferry cards. Noah follows a typical turn order with the active player acting, before play progresses to the player on their left.
Endgame Noah is played over 3 rounds. After the 3rd round has concluded, players count their finishing scores. Points are tallied, lowest score wins! Overall
Noah is in essence a light trick-taking game and most of the mechanics are pretty straightforward; play a card and try to get that set to 21 but there's a couple of wrinkles in there. Firstly, the rules for all male, all female or alternating animal cards will present players with some interesting conundrums. Players will need to try and think ahead, a card they play early in a round will have a significant effect later. For example if a player only has 1 female card and plays it on another female card, then they won't be able to play any of their male cards on that ferry. Players will also need to pay attention to the tears on their cards, playing cards with high penalty-points is vital to keep a score low. As expressed above, I feel this rule is a bit fiddly but without it, the game would be too simple. Having to think about numbers and colours is what marks the game out as a bit different and forces players to make meaningful decisions Secondly, the mechanic for moving the Noah token can throw a real element of unpredictability and even some 'take that' into the game. A player can move Noah to a ferry that has a weight of '20' for example, making it hard for the following player to play a card on it. It goes both ways though and sometimes, Noah will just by chance be moved to a ferry where the following player cannot play a card. I'm not sure how I feel about this, it adds some much needed unpredictability to the game which prevents players from over planning. However, it veers very close to the frustrating side, fans of heavier games may find this off putting. For me, it was a little frustrating, simplistic and unengaging. Noah is also a quite 'negative' game about not gaining points and having the lowest possible score. Generally, this type of scoring doesn't sit well with me. Having said that, It's fair to say that I'm probably not the target audience here . From its colourful, cheerful presentation, light trick-taking mechanic and easy to setup and learn rules, it's clear that Noah is a family friendly game. It also has a reasonably quick play time that does not outstay its welcome. If you're looking for a light card game with some distinctive gameplay to play with more casual or younger players, then Noah might be what you're looking for. 20th August 2022 It's a Saturday night and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness. Cross an ocean, hop from island to island on a lonely journey to find your paradise island and tranquillity. Tranquility is a cooperative, game about assessing risks and playing cards. Also, the rules state that players should not explicitly discuss their cards between them, so I guess that could be considered a form of tranquillity? What's in a game? Tranquility is a card game that comes packaged in a distinctive looking cubic box. All the game's cards are an unusual square shape.
Quality wise, the cards are pretty average. Not much more to say here. The presentation and artwork for Tranquility is excellent. The illustrations show a series of unique and interesting islands. The colourful artwork has a bright, clean and stylised almost minimalist look to it that does a great job of conveying the subdued isolation of a sea bound journey. There's barely any iconography in Tranquility and what there is of it is reserved for the expansion cards. How's it play? Set up
On to play The objective in Tranquility is to cooperatively fill all 36 spaces in the 6x6 grid with island cards. Furthermore, all the cards must be positioned in numerical order (Although not necessarily placed in sequence.) going from low to high and left to right, starting in the bottom left corner and ending in the top right one. It's worth noting that while cards are placed in a 6x6 grid, the numbers 'wrap around', this means they are essentially in a long line. Tranquility uses a traditional turn order with the active player taking an action before player progress to the player on their left. During their turn, the active player can do 1 of 2 possible actions.
Endgame Tranquility continues until 1 of the 2 following conditions are met. Cannot play: If the active player does not have a card to play or cannot discard 2 cards to pass, then the players collectively lose. Finish card: If all 36 spaces in the grid have been filled and the active player has a finish card in their hand, they can play it and the players collectively win. Overall
Tranquility feels like a puzzle orientated game with a minor element of mathematics. The game is clearly dived into early and late game. The early game is where players will look to put cards into play without other adjacent cards to avoid discarding cards. The late game is where players have no choice but to discard in order to play cards and have to decide which and how many cards to discard and discarding is the crux of the game. Discarding means getting rid of cards which may prove vital later in the game. Players will have to judge which cards are 'safer' to discard and hope alternative cards will appear. It is the chief risk that players take in Tranquility. This is is why the start card rule can prove tricky for players, especially if it appears early in the game, having to discard 8 cards is harsh - it's nearly 10% of the deck. Curiously though, discarding cards gets easier as the game progresses. Typically numbers will get locked out as cards are played. E.g., if a 51 is placed adjacent to a 54, then cards 52 & 53 can no longer be used and can be freely discarded. Additionally, once the first start card has been played, any others can be safely discarded. Conversely, it's always risky to discard a finish card. All of this means that decisions in the early game are the most important and the game will 'settle down' as it progresses. Having said all of that, there is a issue I have with the game; which is that there's definitely a formula we found that players can employ to greatly increase their chances to win. It's not a guarantee and I never feel like we could be complacent when we played, even though we now generally win the vast majority of games we play and the game seems 'beaten'. Tranquility is fairly easy to learn, especially considering it's a cooperative game - quite often cooperative games have complex engines to drive the gameplay but that's not the case here. The game provides some conundrums to face and problems to solve. Players will need to manage the risk of their discards and make decisive decisions. If all of that sounds like some you'll like then Tranquility is definitely a game that's worth playing, just don't play it too often. 18th August 2022 Broadsword! It's a Thursday and we're in Aldershot for some gaming fun! According to Wikipedia, HeroQuest was originally published in 1989, which makes me feel very old. The version that we are playing though, is the 21st iteration. So grab your staff and pull on your loincloth as we set into vaguely generic fantasy world of HeroQuest in search of treasure. Alternatively, take on the role of Zargon and oppose the heroes. What's in a game?
HeroQuest's components are all generally good. The board, tiles and cards are of an acceptable quality. The dice are also fine and in a move that pays homage to the original HeroQuest, there still aren't enough of them to split conveniently between the hero players and Zargon player! The game really could do with a few more combat dice! Probably the biggest components are the miniatures. All the heroes and monsters miniatures come in single colour plastic according to type, heroes are red, goblinoids are green, undead are beige and so on. I'm pretty certain the sculpts are all new as well, the games has undergone cosmetic changes due to licensing issues regarding the original. Speaking of sculpts, I found their quality to be... OK. If I were assessing the miniatures exclusive of the game, they wouldn't be good but since they are meant to be part of a game; and in that context they're pretty cool. Especially since I feel that they're designed to hark back to the original style and design, which I think they do a good job of doing. The scenery and dressing is also a bit of a mixed bag. The scenery in this version is all made of plastic and is much more durable than the original scenery which in part was made of cardboard. However, that cardboard scenery with its printed artwork was a lot more colourful. The modern scenery in comparison is a just drab, monochrome, grey plastic. HeroQuest's art is good wherever it appears, mostly on cards and has a brash, chunky cartoony aesthetic that suitably fits the style of the game. There are a few icons in the game that are easily learned, the Zargon player has to learn a bit more due to having to comprehend the scenarios in the quest book but again, it's not an obstacle. How's it play? Setup Before any play can begin, one player must decide to take the role of Zargon who is essentially the 'Games Master' in RPG parlance and controls all the enemy forces that oppose the players. Whoever plays Zargon will probably be doing so for all 14 quests presented in the quest book. Up to 4 other players will assume the role of heroes adventuring through the campaign. Generally, once players have chosen a hero, they will stick with that hero until the end of the campaign. Having said that, there's nothing to stop players swapping or switching around heroes if they so desire.
On to play In HeroQuest, all the hero players will each take their individual turns and then the Zargon player will finally take their turn. Generally this is done with the player to the left of the Zargon player going first with turns progressing to the left until eventually the Zargon player goes last. The general flow of play will involve the heroes exploring the dungeon game board (Which is unpopulated at the game start.) and in response, Zargon revealing what the heroes encounter, be it doors, dead ends, traps or monsters and so on. Once the heroes have had their turns, Zargon can act. This means they can move any visible monsters to attack the heroes. Thus if no monsters are visible on the board, Zargon basically does nothing.
Endgame Play continues until the hero players complete quest objective, in which case, they collectively win! Otherwise, if all the heroes are instead killed, then the Zargon player wins. Additionally, if the hero players retreat (By returning to the stairs tile.) for whatever reason then they also lose. That's not the end! Once a quest has ended, players can spend their hard won loot and cash to buy equipment. Weapons can increase a hero's attack score and armour can increases defence scores, while daggers and crossbows offer ranged attacks and so on. When buying equipment, the player who will use it takes possession of the card. Furthermore, once all copies of a certain item are bought from the equipment deck , then that item can no longer be bought. Conversely, consumable items such as potions and daggers are returned to the equipment deck when used. End Endgame! If the hero players manage to succeed at all 14 quests, they have won the campaign. Overall
There's quite a lot to write about here and my thoughts will probably wander, so please indulge me - and let's get started! HeroQuest was a pretty ground-breaking game in 1989. Published by a mainstream games producer, it offered people who had never played an RPG an accessible slice of the RPG experience and introduced some game concepts to people who had never encountered them before. It's also a window into how games played 35 years ago and what player expectations were like back then. For example, a modern game with similar themes to HeroQuest probably wouldn't employ a roll-and-move mechanic. Another example are rewards and the game's equivalent of levelling up: As explained below, HeroQuest rarely rewards to players - which come in the form of equipment upgrades. These upgrades occur quite infrequently but are quite significant statistically, i.e., going from 2 combat dice to 3 is a big jump. A modern game would try and find a way to do the opposite and drip-feed players constant but low-impact rewards in what would be called a gameplay loop or moment-to-moment engagement. HeroQuest occasionally also trolls player, forcing them to deal with multiple traps and putting no reward on the other side. Mechanically, HeroQuest is actually a fairly straightforward game. While heroes have 6 actions they can perform, 3 of those are almost identical actions and 1 is very situational. Players will find themselves moving and searching, opening doors and defeating monsters behind them, searching, then moving on. Rinse and repeat. While there are definitely some tactics that players can adopt and repeatedly employ, the random placement of challenges - particularly monsters who form the majority of heroes' encounters - means that players will need to adapt to situations and respond effectively. There's also some randomness to player actions - the roll-and-move mechanic means that heroes may not reach their opponent when they need to and also may not be able to escape enemies when they need to. The combat system is also straightforward and runs smoothly enough, it does feel quite swingy and unpredictable though but that might just be me grumbling about dice rolls! We found that the tougher monsters are very hard to wound. Once their defence is high enough, they're generally guaranteed being able to absorb 1 wound from an attack. This means the heroes will need to rely on luck to get 2 wounds in an attack or use at least 4 dice to attack and have a passable chance of getting 2 wounds. How do the heroes get higher attack scores? This brings me to equipment. Generally, we ended up equipping the 2 front line fighters (Primarily the barbarian but to a lesser extent also the dwarf.) with weapons above anyone else as well as providing the elf with a crossbow. Getting an attack stat up to 4 and gaining ranged attacks were real game changers. Getting the right equipment or getting equipment and using it the right way can enhance or change tactics, improve the odds of surviving, winning fights and so on. What's also interesting is that at the end of a quest, the hero players have the opportunity to buy equipment. However, because the cost is so high, in practice it means they will only get to buy something once after every 2 or 3 quests. It means that the heroes will get maybe 6 or 7 pieces of equipment throughout the entire campaign and will need to choose wisely. Some equipment such as consumables seem very expensive for what they provide. During our playthroughs, we never seriously considered buying things like throwing daggers or holy water. Thematically, HeroQuest is a bit of a strange beast. It has obvious elements derived from tabletop RPGs such as having a games master, combat screen, dungeons to explore, character classes and stats, scenarios, campaigns and narratives, rolling dice for combat etc but there are also some key differences. There's no experience points or levelling, instead character improvements happen via buying better equipment. Also, a key difference for me is the role the Zargon player has, they are part games master but also part antagonist and opponent to the heroes which is different to the majority of RPGs. Why is this significant? Let me explain. The HeroQuest campaign has 14 quests, it took us a total of 15 attempts to complete all of them, in other words we only failed 1 of the quests, the other 13 were completed successfully at the first try. I think that in part this is due to the fact that we're all experienced gamers and it feels the game is targeted at the early teenage market so we mostly breezed through it. (A little more about this below.) I also think this because the game utilises a 'one vs many' system and I've always felt that it's very hard to balance this type of game fairly, 3 or 4 human brains will always have the advantage over 1 human brain. This is compounded by the fact that HeroQuest has a campaign. It means that if the heroes fail a quest, they will invariably have to repeat it again, why is this significant? The purpose of a campaign is to advance through the multitude of quests until the final one can be completed and it can be tedious repeating failed quests, especially if more than once. When the surprise of knowing what is behind a door is gone, the game can become an exercise in rolling dice over strategy. Returning to difficulty: I read that it was originally envisioned that the hero players would behave competitively and cooperation between them would make the game too easy. This of course contradicts the RPG nature of the game and it contradicts the rule book too, which states the players should cooperate and they will collectively win or lose. Finally, it also contradicts player sensibilities; without cooperation, the wizard in particular for example, has a fairly low chance of surviving a dungeon. All of this leads me to suspect that either deliberately or accidentally, the game is skewed in favour of the players. It sort of makes sense because it gives the campaign momentum and keeps events moving forward. The problem though, is that it can become a frustrating experience for the Zargon player, who in essence has to lose over and over. It may have been better to do away with having a antagonistic games master role and have a more traditional games master. I get the feeling though that it was done that way to make HeroQuest seem a little more like a 'traditional' board game. It would have been even better if the game master role could have been automated entirely. I imagine though, that it would've increased the game's difficulty significantly. Ultimately, I found HeroQuest just about engaging enough to keep my attention, you could never afford to become complacent. Not paying attention was a sure-fire way to get your hero into trouble. The campaign does have a narrative, however it's fairly generic and also fairly forgettable. For me, the pleasure I think, came from the opportunity to play a game cooperatively along with friends. If you want a light and accessible RPG adjacent experience that's easy to manage without much prep time, you could do a lot worse than HeroQuest. If you're a parent or adult looking for a way to introduce youngsters to some more elaborate game mechanics and concepts or introduce them to a beginner RPG, then HeroQuest is definitely worth a look in. 17th August 2022 It's a Wednesday afternoon and we're round Simon's for some gaming goodness. Become a raider in the world of antiquity and attack a bunch of ancient empires by placing meeples on a board! What's in a game?
Component quality is good throughout Raiders of Scythia, cards and tiles are exactly as you'd expect them to be. The tokens are excellent, attention has gone into the creation of the provisions and houmous err... kumis and while the plunder tokens are more generic, they are also very chunky and tactile. So, I think it looks like whoever owned the copy of Raiders of Scythia we played bought stickers that upgraded the tokens with artwork (As you can see from the photos.). I think that otherwise by default the tokens are plain. This also means someone had to sit down and attach stickers to a lot of token, that would push me into the deep end! Regardless of this, the game's art-style is excellent. I'm not an art expert but it uses a sort of line illustration with flat shading that shows a lot of detail and is used to great effect on the board as it shows various situations in the different situations without overly cluttering the board. While there is a fair amount of iconography, it's mostly do with the tokens and is fairly apparent, I don't think that it will prove to be a problem. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Raiders of Scythia, players will vying to gain resources which will allow them in turn to raid and pillage which earn VPs, consequently also acquiring plunder which can be used to complete quest tiles which also earn VPs. Play follows the usual paradigm of the active player taking an action before play progresses to the player on the left. Broadly speaking, the active player has a choice of 1 of 2 actions each turn.
Endgame Play continues until only to raid spaces or quest tiles remain on the board. After this, all player get 1 more turn and it goes to scoring. VPs can come from several sources.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
I'm going to start by saying the idea 'of a worker placement game with each player only having only 1 worker' sounds crazy but it works perfectly well in Raiders of Scythia. There's a clever mechanic at play with the colours of the meeples. E.g., when using the blue meeples to raid, they can't be taken again and players will be taking grey and red meeples instead by by the time player's are doing that, they won't need the blue meeples anymore. Players are never put in a position where they can't use a meeple because of its colour. Anyway, on to the game. Players will need to use the village in order to gain resources to raid the civilisation to gain plunder and reveal quest tiles which can then be bought with whatever resources and plunder the player has acquired. Phew! It's something of a race to do this since once a spot has been raided, that's it, no one can raid that spot again. Action optimisation is important. Something similar can apply when placing meeples in the village. There can only ever 1 worker on a space and there's some high level play that can be utilised by blocking another player and putting a meeple of your own in spot they want to use first. The same applies when taking a meeple, players can choose not to take a certain meeple just to leave the space blocked. Players will also need to take into consideration their crew, not only is it vital in undertaking raids, it also provides players some engine building capacity to their actions. Finally, the game also provides some opportunities for risk/reward actions during raids as dice rolls are unpredictable. While it's not possible to fail a raid (Players just gain less or 0 VPs for a bad roll), it's possible to squander resources and kumis for a poor roll. Players will be faced with the choice of raiding earlier with a weaker crew or risk losing a raid to another player by taking the time to increase the strength of their crew. Furthermore, wounds are also unpredictable, a player's crew cards may take 0 wounds or may take 6 depending on the dice roll, adding the element of risk. For me, Raiders of Scythia is a good worker placement game. Because players essentially only ever 2 actions per, they need to think about the best way to make use of them, they need to make every decision count. In other words, their decisions are meaningful, which is always a good thing. I found the game to be a fun experience with a unique mechanic for a worker placement game. 16th August 2022 It's a Tuesday and were at The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club for some gaming goodness. Have you ever watched the classic Jaws movie and decided, 'y'know I wanna be the shark going round chomping on hapless swimmers'? Then this might be the game for you! Jaws is a asymmetrical game of 2 halves where up to 3 players take on the roles of film's 3 protagonists and 1 player becomes the shark. At first the protagonists will seek to defend Amity Island from shark attacks before finally engaging it in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. Jaws is played over 2 acts (Essentially 2 different games in reality.) and as such, has a lot of double-sided components mostly relevant to each act. For the purposes of this blog, I'm mostly going to write about each act separately. Act 1 What's in a game?
Act 2 What's in a game?
Phew, I think that's it for rules! Component quality for Jaws ranges from average to very good. Things like the cards and tokens are your pretty standard cardboard affair, which is fine. The dice seem to be made of acrylic and although they're not as nice as wood, they feel quality with engraved icons instead of printed ones. The wooden meeples are the standout component, particularly the wooden boats for Hooper and Quint, as well the shark meeple inspired by the films iconic artwork and I think they're cool. As far as I can tell, the Jaws game has a relatively restrained use of photo art sourced from the film which only appears on a number of the event cards and even then it is used sparingly. It's wise decision in my opinion, as too much can make a game look cheap. The game also seems to reference artwork used for the shark from the film but because it's actually art, it looks good. Otherwise, art used throughout the game is good, the swimmers tokens and player boards all look good. The best artwork is found the Amity Island side of the game board though, it's an excellent illustration with lots of pretty detail. There isn't too much iconography and what there is, is easily understood. Most of the rules information on components comes as written text. Act 1 How's it play? Setup
On to play During Act 1, the shark player will be attempting to eat as many hapless swimmers as possible! Meanwhile, the crew players will be using barrels both to try and locate the shark and to attach them to the shark. The more swimmers the shark eats, the more advantage the shark player has during Act 2. The round is broken down into several phases and follows a more or less traditional turn order with each player having a number of action points they can spend to achieve their actions. Phase occur as follows.
Act 1 Endgame Act 1 will immediately end if 1 of the following 2 criteria is met: Barrels: 2 barrels are attached to the shark by the Quint player. Swimmers: The shark player has eaten 9 swimmers. Act 2 How's it play? Setup
On to play During Act 2, the shark player will be attempting to either totally destroy The Orca or deal enough damage to the crew to what amounts to eating them. Meanwhile, in turn, they will be attempting to deal enough damage to the shark to defeat it. Play takes place over a number of phases.
Endgame Play continues until 1 of 3 criteria are met. If the shark's damage exceeds its tracker, it is defeated and the crew collectively win. If The Orca is totally destroyed, the shark player wins, or, if the damage on all the hero protagonists exceed their tracker, they are all eaten and the shark wins! Overall
It's been a long time (And I do mean a long time!) since I watched Jaws but I feel the game does for the most part a good job of thematically emulating the movie. Having Brody rushing around the island kicking pesky swimmers off the beaches and closing them only to have them open and fill with swimmers again felt like the movie. On the other hand, having Brody run around collecting barrels for Quint was strange. While the shark popping up to attack swimmers before vanishing was cool, Hooper and Quint in their boats playing a cat and mouse game with the shark while trying to rescue swimmers seemed a bit strange. Especially considering the heroes are the cats and the shark is the mouse, which is a bit of a reverse of how the film plays out. Having said all of that, Act 2 does a excellent job of emulating the protagonist's final confrontation with the shark. So overall... This is more of a comment than a criticism on the game's theme. Now, on to game play. Act 1 presents an interesting cat-and-mouse challenge to the players which will change contextually according to how swimmers are distributed by event cards. The shark player needs to eat swimmers but avoid spaces that the crew players might target and if possible, avoid the barrels that detect the shark. Astute crew players will need to balance their efforts between trying to protect beaches with lots of swimmers and also covering lesser used areas. While the busier beaches might provide a target-rich environment for the shark, the shark player may anticipate the crew players protecting those beaches and avoid them for smaller 'quieter' targets. I get the feeling that if the shark gets a lot of kills or very few, it will have a big influence on who will win in Act 2. Certainly, the shark getting 5 kills (Which is exactly in the middle.) led to a very close finish. Act 2 also presents a sort of cat and mouse scenario with differing dilemmas for the shark player and the crew players. The shark player will generally be faced with deciding whether doing damage or avoiding it, often the resurface cards will not allow the shark player to do both. The shark player will may also have the opportunity to target the crew instead of the ship. Eliminating one of the crew can be very beneficial as it lowers the number of attacks the shark may have to face but generally, it's harder and will take longer to kill a crewmate than it is to destroy one of The Orca tiles. The crew players also face a dilemma. They know the 3 locations where the shark might resurface so with 3 protagonists could target all 3 locations, but this means spreading their firepower and it'll be a tall order defeating the shark this way. So the crew will need to try and anticipate which option the shark player will choose and this require assessing a bunch of contextual elements such as how much damage the shark will do, how high it's evade is and how damaged that part of The Orca is. All players will need to adapt to the random circumstances provided by the resurface cards and will probably have to trade off one strategy for another. It presents the players will meaningful decisions to make, which is always a good thing. However, there are somethings I definitely do not like about the game. Firstly, Jaws is a one-vs-many game and I'm not a fan of this game type. Generally the mechanics of one-vs-many games can never balance for the fact that multiple human brains will have an advantage a single human brain. For the most part, it's fairly inherent that 3 players will see more strategies and opportunities than a single player. Also; when someone is playing the 'one', games can be become a lonely experience since all the other players will be against them. I can't help but wonder if the shark could have been automated and have the game be fully cooperative. Secondly, because this is such a asymmetrical game, it means that one set of rules must be learned by the crew players and another by the shark player. That's not the end of it! Because there are 2 acts, it means that there are actually 4 sub-games that must be learned. Luckily, none of the rules are particularly complex or hard to comprehend but even so, it feels like a lot of effort to play a game, then have to learn a new set of rules to continue. More effort than the entertainment the game delivers. Normally I don't bother blogging about marketing or sales but I have to wonder who this is aimed at? Dedicated games, movie fans? Most dedicated gamers are with good reason wary of licensed games. They tend to be quick cash-ins with lacking game. To be clear I don't think that's the case for Jaws, while the rules are light-ish, there's depth of gameplay to found in the cat-and mouse mechanics that pits players against each other. I just didn't find it particularly compelling. Jaws is a great, classic movie and I'm sure there are collectors of Jaws memorabilia and merchandise but will they care enough about the game to play it. I'm sure it will end up in the collections of those fans but will they be compelled enough to make make the effort to learn and play the game? If you're really after a Jaws experience and are happy with the game's 2 act structure and cat-and-mouse gameplay. This is by no means a bad game and worth a try. For me this didn't hit the spot and I have no desire to play it. 11th August 2022 Thursday is here again and we're in Aldershot for more gaming goodness. Do you like dungeons (Of the D&D kind of course...)? Do you like interior decoration? Well now you can channel your inner malevolent Changing Rooms desires in this tile laying game of stylish dungeon creation for your fiendish and and most definitely picky overlord! What's in a game?
Component quality is good throughout Dungeon Decorators as you'd expect from any modern game. The tiles and tokens are all suitable sturdy as the cards, nothing bad here but nothing standout either. The wooden cubes are a welcome addition and the traditional playing pawns are plastic - and that's fine, although to be honest they feel like a bit of left-field choice but they're also relatively big and practical, so that's good. Most of the game's art appears on the player boards and cards, particularly the boss cards but it even carries over to some of the tokens. With bright and cartoony character art, it conveys the game's humorous theme and it's an appealing style. Artwork for the corridors, junctions and rooms is straightforward but always practical. There's quite a few icons to Dungeon Decorators though and players will need to learn them. This is most apparent with the decoration side of the dungeon tiles where there's the 'double-whammy' of not only having to learn what the various icons represent, but what their positioning in relation to each other means. It's a bit fiddly and belies the games light theme and rules and will probably require referring to the rules. How's it player? Setup
On to play The objective in Dungeon Decorators is to create a dungeon in certain shapes as well as adding decorations to the dungeon in certain positions. What these shapes and positions will be is determined by the 2 boss cards which will apply to all players and by individual goal cards players have hidden in their hands. During each round, the active player's turn is split into 5 phases. Dungeon Decorators does not follow the usual turn structure, once the active player has completed their actions, play does not progress to the player on their left, instead the next player is determined by whose pawn is next in line on the draft board. The following occurs in a round:
Endgame There are 2 ways the game can end. If the 3rd and final hourglass is drawn from the red bag when refilling the spaces on the draft board, then the game immediately ends. If the final hourglass is drawn during an action, such as placing a pawn in the middle space on the draft board our using a burrow bro action, then the current round is played out and the game ends with players having had even turns. There are a variety of ways to score VPs.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
No doubt about it, Dungeon Decorators has a quirky theme along with quirky presentation to go with it. At it's heart though, it's a pretty straightforward game of it's type, draft a tile and play it into a expanding network of tiles to maximise connections, albeit with a couple of nice little innovative touches in the form tile flipping and personal scoring opportunities, which I'll talk about below. As is typical of this kind of game, players will need to position tiles in order to optimise the points they will score. Talking of scoring, Dungeon Decorators provides 2 clear routes to scoring points; how a dungeon is shaped and how decorations are placed which brings to me to the double-sided tiles. When placing a tile, players will need to choose which side to use and this will be heavily contextual. Players will need to take into consideration what tiles they already have in play as well as their personal goal cards and global scoring cards. Unlike most tile-laying games, there's no connection between different scoring opportunities on the tiles, that is shape and decoration scoring is completely separate to each other with no way to place a tile to score both, it's one or the other. Yet, they also rely on each other or at least decoration tiles rely upon their presence of walls to be placed against. This means players will need to think, how can they can place a dungeon shape that allows me to play decorations. Personal goal cards are also an interesting addition. Firstly, they add some asymmetrical scoring opportunities which will lead to player adopting different approaches to what they prioritise and essentially some asymmetrical tactics. Secondly, they provide players with some flexibility when deciding how to prioritise certain elements of the game. E.g., a when scoring goal cards, a player can choose to only draw shape goal cards and concentrate on playing dungeon tiles over decorations. However, even with these 2 innovative mechanics, I feel that Dungeon Decorators fails to stand out of the crowd. For me it doesn't feel different enough to other games of s similar type. It's a perfectly acceptable game with solid core gameplay that provides an entertaining experience and I would happily play this if someone else wanted to but there are other games I would personally choose over Dungeon Decorators. If you're a big fan of drafting, tile laying games and want to try something familiar but a fresh twist on the mechanics or the fun theme tickles your fancy, then you may want to give this a look-in. 5th August 2022 It's a Friday and we're in Aldershot for some gaming! When you go into a national park, you may find yourself hiking along trails. Which is a slightly tortured segue into how Trails is actually a follow up to the excellent Parks game and shares some similar concepts. So let's hit the errr... trail and see how it stacks up? What's in a game?
For the most part, component quality in Trails is good. The wooden meeples look and feel good as does the die. I also like the wooden resource cubes, although I'm not a big fan of the colours which I feel are a little too muted and sometimes in poor light, the grey and the green colours can feel hard to distinguish. I also found the player colours a little muted too. All the tiles and tokens are constructed of thick card and feel weighty. However, I would describe all the cards as average in quality and perhaps a little flimsy. It's not really an issue though, Trails is not a card game and they won't be handled much so should stand up to repeated handling. Without a doubt, all the art in Trails is excellent. Much of it is sourced from the Fifty-Nine Parks art project which also provided the same art for Parks and will be familiar to players of that. So even though Trails is reusing artwork, it doesn't matter because it's such good quality. Having said that, a lot of images are heavily cropped and the fact they're all on relatively small components means they just don't look as impressive. Original art appears on the badge cards in the form of a series of quite stylised images. It's a different style to art that appears on the tile and photo cards but I have to say I think it looks good. All the main icons which appear on the tiles and die are easily understood. It's not quite so obvious with some of the rewards on badge cards and players will need to refer to the rules and clarifications on occasion. It's nothing game breaking though. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Trails, players will travel back and forth along the path, taking photos and accumulating resources which they will use to buy badge cards. The game follows a typical turn structure with the active player resolving their turn before play progresses to the left. As their action, the active player can move their meeple and resolve the tile it lands on.
Endgame When a player take as sun action that moves off the last leftmost icon on the trail end, they resolve that action as usual and take the sun token. Play progresses normally, until the player to the right of sun token holder has completed their action, upon which the game ends. I.e., once sun has taken the sun token, all other players get 1 more turn. Players now calculate their VPs.
Overall I'm not over fond of comparing one game to another, a game should be taken on it own merits but in this case, there might be some value in doing so. Parks and Trails come from the same family of games and as such share some thematic elements. Both are about hiking along tiles, collecting resources to acquire photos and cards, as well as using canteens for a bonus. However, Trails differs in several ways as explained below. Unlike it's predecessor, hikers from multiple players can happily coexist on the same space so the stress and need to try and anticipate where other players' hikers will go is gone, as the tactic of trying to block other players. It makes the game a little lighter (By no means a bad thing.) and focuses players on getting badge cards (Which are the game's biggest source of VPs.) and players will encounter something of a conundrum here. They may have the urge to collect as many resources as possible which can be prudent but at the same time, they'll want to reach the trail head & end tiles quickly to get a certain badge card before other players. Trails is a game about optimisation especially since there are only 3 types to manage - although that 8 cube limit can be punishing. I also like the addition of the day turning into night mechanic, not only is it visually pleasing to watch the sun set, it adds some momentum to the game, upping the ante by giving players more resources and making it easier to get more badge cards. Players that have done well in the early game are not guaranteed victory. So is Trails a sufficiently different game to Parks to warrant having both? I would say yes. I bought copies of both and I'm glad I did. Trails felt like an easy game to learn and despite the fairly lengthy rules writeup above, is a reasonably light game that requires a little less brain power and also a little less directly competitive. Although for a lighter game is has a reasonably long play time - far too long to be considered a filler game. That's a minor criticism though and ultimately, Trails is a fun experience and is worth trying.  Big brother, little brother. 4th August 2022 It's a Thursday and we're round Simon's for a evening of gaming entertainment. Cascadia: 'A land of falling waters,' generally referring to a large wilderness area in the Pacific north-west of the USA. In Cascadia players vie to create a diverse landscape of habitats and wildlife in this tile placement game. What's in a game?
For the most part the components are all high quality. The tiles and tokens are sturdy and the wildlife tokens in particular are chunky and tactile. The pinecone tokens are average quality by modern standard - which means perfectly acceptable. The same is true of the cards, they feel a little flimsy but since they're only used to display information and won't really be handled much, they too are perfectly acceptable. The art used on cards is fantastic, having said that, each set of 4 only uses 2 images which are flipped and used a 2nd time, it's a minor quibble but it feels touch cheap. Art on the tiles is good too but is hard to appreciate since they are relatively small. Importantly, it's also uncluttered, differences between habitats is for the most part very easy to distinguish. Similarly, the wildlife icons are easy seen. As a minor aside: Prairies are depicted as yellow, which I guess represent dry grasslands. The yellow definitely does not represent desert! And yes; some of the yellow tiles have salmon icons on them, because, believe it or not, prairies can have water features. If you ever play the game and someone says, 'why are their fish in the desert', then let them know!! Anyway, back to talking about components. The iconography is easily understood in Cascadia. It's obvious what the wildlife icons represent and the icon for pinecones is equally as obvious. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Cascadia, players will draft tiles and wildlife tokens, using them to create a personal landscape by placing tiles adjacent to each other and putting tokens on top of them in order to create habitats and patterns of animals to score points. Cascadia follows a usual turn order with the active player resolving their action before play progresses to their left.
Endgame Play continues until all the face-down stacks of tiles have been depleted and only 3 tiles remain in the drafting area, which should also be a even number of player turns. VPs are scored from several sources.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
The rulebook for Cascadia talks about the real life habitats and biomes that inspired the game and it's obvious that this is one of those games where a bit of extra attention has been put into the details. On to the game itself: Cascadia has a nice mixture of quick to learn rules and depth of gameplay. This depth comes from forcing players to make tricky and meaningful decisions. This occurs because Cascadia has 3 axis' of play which will influence players' choices. The first comes from wanting tiles with specific habitats on them; players may want to expand their forests or rivers for example and will be looking for tiles that facilitate that. The second axis comes from also wanting tiles with specific wildlife icons. If a player needs a fox token in a certain spot, then they'll need a tile with a fox icon. The third and final axis comes from getting the actual wildlife tokens that are needed to score the wildlife cards. All of this means that it's unlikely that players will get all 3 that they want when picking a single pair which would be a no-brainer, they'll probably end getting 2 of they want and sometimes only 1. Players will need to adapt and re-strategize contextually, look to optimise their picks and finding other scoring opportunities. Players will probably have to gamble a little bit on getting what they need later in the game. Pinecone tokens can of course change things. Used at the right time they can really open up a player's choices, getting any pair can make a difference, as can clearing all wildlife tokens in the drafting area if a player is really looking for a certain token. Cascadia also has a fairly quick playtime, although it sort of occupies a game length that's way too long to be a filler but a little too short to fill an entire evening. I don't consider that a bad thing, you could just play twice! The randomness in setup and scoring gives it a lot of replayability. If I had a criticism of Cascadia, it would be that sometimes the card scoring can be a little unclear and finicky. The rulebook does offer elaborations on this, but it's a definite little niggle. Otherwise though, I think Cascadia is ab excellent tile-laying and set collectiing game. For me it ticks a lot of boxes that good games should; straightforward rules, some depth for decision making and a brisk playtime. It's one of those games I frequently like to carry in my board game bag when going to game events, so if I meet someone who's never met played Cascadia, they can try it. As should you! |
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