20th October 2019

Sunday gaming at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues as there is no 50 Fathoms.

The final game of the day was 'Aye, Dark Overlord!'. A compact and simple 'storytelling' card game about making excuses to your boss. So if you've ever had a job you were really bad at, you'll be right at home.

What's in a game?
Aye, Dark Overlord! is a pure card game and has no other components.

• Hint cards: These cards each contain a picture and a phrase. They are used as the foundation of the excuse that a player will try and pass off.
• Action cards: There are 2 types of action card. 'Pass the buck' that makes someone else the active player and 'Freeze' that allows a non-active player to mess with the active player.
• Withering look cards: These cards are used exclusively by the Dark Overlord player.

All of the art on the cards is comic, cartoony and entirely fitting for this tongue in cheek game.

How's it play?
One player will assume the role of the Dark Overlord, remaining players all take on the role of his inept minions.
The hint and action cards are shuffled and each player is dealt 3 hint cards and 3 action cards.

The premise of Aye, Dark Overlord! is that the minions are returning from some mission that they were tasked with by the Dark Overlord. The mission was yet another failure! Now the Dark Overlord wants to know why it failed?

• The game starts when the Dark Overlord player asks one of minions a question about why the mission failed. It can't just be 'Why did the mission fail?'. It needs to be something like, 'Why did you fail to get the magic ring?', or 'Why did you fail to kill the boy-wizard?'.
• Now the chosen minion player must make up an excuse about the mission. To do this, the player must lay down a hint card. Their excuse must be related in some way to something that is on the hint card they just played.
• The minion player can play more than hint card to make their excuse more elaborate. There is a maximum of 3 hint cards that can be used.
• This takes the form of a conversation (Or interrogation more accurately.) between the Dark Overlord and a minion.

Action cards
As well as hint cards, action cards can be played.

• Pass the buck: The active player can play this card (At the same time as another hint card.), as the name suggests, the active player can use it to try and move the blame to another player. The hint card must be part of the attempt to pass the buck.
• Freeze: This card is also played with a hint card. It is not played by the active player. Instead it's played by another minion player, who interrupts the active player's excuse to add another element or complication. Then the active player has to react or respond to this interruption. As with 'pass the buck' when interrupting the active player, the hint card must be part of the interruption.

The Dark Overlord
Withering look cards are only played by the Dark Overlord player.

• If at any time the Dark Overland is unimpressed or unconvinced by the minions excuse, then the Dark Overlord can give the minion a withering look and and a withering look card.
• There are a wealth of other reasons to give a minion a withering look card, being slow or boring, telling bad jokes, not having a hint card etc.
• If a player doesn't have a pass the buck card, they're very likely to get a withering look card.
• Once a minion has received a withering look card, the Dark Overlord will move to another minion to question.
  

Endgame
Once a minion has received a 3rd withering look card it's game over - and not just for the game! The minion is carted off to the Dark Overlord's dungeons for an 'appropriate reprimand'. All the other minions breathe a sigh of relief.

For the next game, whoever got 3 withering look cards should be the Dark Overlord. 

Overall
Aye, Dark Overlord! is a strange beast and I don't know entirely what to make of it.

Mechanically, it's a very, very light game, almost nonexistent.

However, to me it seems that this game has its roots in 'improv' acting or storytelling. Pass the buck seems it's a bit like 'yes, and' and interrupt a bit like 'yes, but', which are improv terms.

Which I think, for a game like this, means you need a particular kind of player for it to work, it just won't work if players don't 'buy in' to it.

Personally, I found it quite hard to 'gel' with the game. Maybe I need to give it another try?

But if you have an interest in the improv side of this game, it may be your cup of tea.

7th September 2019

Saturday evening. Matakishi's. Game night.

Tonight we decided to play another classic board game. This time it was 'Britannia', a game originally published in 1986, over 30 years ago.
Britannia is a historical game of invasion and conquest and when I say invasion and conquest, I really do mean constant invasion and conquest.

In Britannia, players do not play a single nation or tribe or whatever. Instead they play a colour and each colour has 4 nations of varying size. Each colour will have 1 nation that benefits from a 'major invasion', this explained later.

Britannia is played over 16 rounds and centuries of time. The game starts with the Roman invasion (So around 43 A.D..) and end with the Norman invasion (Around 1066 A.D..).
Even though each player has control of 4 factions, the factions do not appear at the same time in the game. They appear when 'historically appropriate' in various turns throughout the game.

What's in a game?

• Game board: A board that has a map of the UK, split into 37 different ancient regions.
• Tokens: There are lots of tokens, lots and lots of tokens. Tokens for each of the different factions, tokens for leaders, tokens for population expansion.

How's it play?
The rules for Britannia are relatively simple. The complexity comes from the interaction with the other players.

Before the game begins we have set up. Each player chooses a colour and is given all the relevant tokens for that colour, the play begins.

• Players do not take turns in the traditional sense. Instead the game dictates the order in which the factions act (Not the players) in a round. Obviously not all the factions act in all of the turns.
• The first thing a faction does is calculate population increase. The faction accumulates 1 token for each 3 areas that they control (Some areas that are considered 'difficult' and only count as a 1/2 for population.). Extra tokens are distributed into areas the faction already controls.
• Second comes movement. Most tokens can move 2 spaces (But when tokens move, they cannot leave 'empty' areas.). Thus placement of tokens is important to expansion.
• Combat is next. If tokens end their movement in the same space as an opposing faction, then combat ensues. During combat, both factions roll a number of 6-sided dice equal to the size of their force. Every result of 5+ eliminates and opposing token. Some factions are tougher than others, they eliminate enemies on a 4+ and are only eliminated on a 6! If combat takes place on difficult terrain, all tokens are only eliminated by a 6. Finally if after the 1st 'round' of combat, no one side has won, tokens possibly have the choice of retreating to a friendly area.
• Finally, overpopulation is calculated. The amount of tokens a faction has on the map cannot be more than double the number of areas that faction controls. Excess tokens are removed from play.

That's a basic overview of the core rules. But there are rules for Roman forts, rules for leaders, rules for sea movement and rules raiding etc.
One other thing worth noting are 'major invasions'. Each player will have a faction that has a major invasion at some point. A major invasion means that the relevant faction gets to turns in a row.

Endgame
Britannia is played over 16 rounds. Scoring occurs throughout the game, but not on every round. In fact not all the factions score at the same time, some factions score on entirely different rounds.

Additionally, when scoring is carried out, different factions score different points for controlling different areas of the board. Which means that different factions may have different priorities. However quite often opposing factions score points for the same regions, invariably pushing them into conflict with one another.

After all the rounds have been completed, points are tallied and highest score wins.

Overall
Britannia is a wargame and as such is very confrontational. It's a game that charts the historic invasions and conquests of early Britain. It turns out there were a lot of invasions and conquests! Players will more or less be in constant conflict with other players and there's no way to avoid it.

Combat is a key component in Britannia: Luckily, the basics of the rules are simple to remember. Mostly players will be looking into how to expand into and hold high scoring areas and this drive most of the game's conflict.

Asymmetrical rules make Britannia interesting and quite unique.

I like how the asymmetrical factions give different players advantage at different times. So for example; whoever has the Romans will gain an early lead, but after that they will have smaller factions appear.
Combined with the asymmetrical scoring that gives different players different objectives means that the end score is always unpredictable.

I do have a couple of minor criticisms of Britannia.

Britannia should only really be played with 4 players. Sure you can play with 3 or 5 players, but it's not optimal.

Britannia can take about 4 hours to play, so it requires quite a time commitment. I guess a millennia of invasions of Britain can't be played out quickly!

But these small criticisms aside; Britannia is an involved but entertaining game to play, provided you don't mind a game about conflict with other players.

29th June 2019

It's a Saturday lunchtime at 'The Sovereigns'.

We should be playing 50 Fathoms, but sometimes life interferes.
So instead we are playing Princess Legend.

Will the Prince find his Princess (Yay!), or will he get the Queen instead (Boo!)! Only you can find out in... Princess Legend.
Princess Legend is a 'bluffing/social deduction/hidden' role card game. Everyone is given a role to play and the 'Prince player' tried to guess who is the Princess.

What's in a game?
Princess Legend is pretty light on components.

A deck of 8 cards. They are actually coasters and not traditional playing cards in size. Each card has a colourful portrait on it. There 3 types of character on the 8 coaster.

• The Honest: There are 3 'honest' characters. The Prince, the Princess and the Fairy.
• The Dishonest: There are 3 'dishonest' characters. The Queen, the Guard and the Siamese.
• The Neutral: There are 2 'neutral' characters. The Maid and the Spy (A spy neutral, hmm, OK.).

​A bunch of tokens to track scoring.
And that's it!

How's it play?

Set up.
The amount of coasters that are used in a game is equal to the number of players plus 1. Thus if you play with 4 players, the game would be played with 5 coasters.
​Princess Legend is played with a minimum of 3 players and 4 coasters. The Prince, the Princess, the Queen and the Maid are always used in all games. The other characters will be used dependant upon the number of players participating.

Every player will play the role of the Prince. The Prince's role moves clockwise round the table in every round.

Firstly, the Prince coaster is given to the player in the Prince role in this turn. The coaster is kept face-up as everyone knows who is the Prince.

Secondly, the remaining coasters are shuffled and dealt face-down to the remaining players. One coaster is placed into the middle of the playing area is played by nobody.
Once dealing has finished the Prince must close their eyes, then all the other players must reveal their roles (Now only the Prince does not know what everybody else's roles are.). Then all the players (With their eyes open.) are satisfied that they've seen everyone else's role, they turn their coasters back face-down again, the Prince can open their eyes once more.
Now play can commence.

Let's do this thing!
The Prince's objective is to guess which player is the Princess (Or if it's the coaster in the middle). To do this, the Prince must ask the other players questions.
However, the objectives of the other players will be different. Other players will want to get the Prince to pick a certain face-down coaster. Each player's objective is different according to their role.

• Princess/Fairy players also want the Prince to find the Princess.
• Queen/Guard/Siamese players will want the Prince to wrongly choose the Queen.
• Maid/Guard players will want the Prince to wrongly select any role except the Princess or Queen.

However, there is a limit to the questions that can be asked. The Prince can ask each player only one question each (In any order.). When all players have answered a question, then the Prince has one final question that they can ask anyone.

Not only is the Prince limited to the number of questions that they can ask. They are also limited in what the question can be. There are only 3 questions that can be asked. They are:

• Where is the Princess?
• Who are you?
• Who is that (Pointing to another player or the coaster in the middle.)?

How the players answer this question is dependant on what role they have.

• Honest characters (Princess/Fairy) must answer honestly.
• Dishonest characters (Queen/Guard/Siamese) must always be dishonest and lie.
• Neutral characters (Maid/Spy) may choose whether to tell the truth or lie.

Once the Prince has made their guess on who is the Princess, all the other players reveal their roles. Then we see who has scored a point in this round.

• If the Prince successfully guessed who was the Princess; all the honest characters earn a point for their players.
• If the Prince wrongly selected the Queen; then all the dishonest characters earn a point.
• If the Prince wrongly selected any character other then the Princess or the Queen; then the neutral characters earn a point.

Endgame.
Play progress until each player has played the Prince 1, 2 or 3 times (Depending on number of players).
Then points are tallied. Highest score wins.

Overall?
Generally, I dislike bluffing/hidden role games. But this is one of the better ones I've played. I like how your put into random, shifting teams each round and then trying to work with your temporary colleagues.

Princess Legend also seems to differ to many other hidden role games: In most hidden role games, your role is hidden from all other players. But in Princess Legend, your role is only hidden from the Prince.
I think that this makes the game a little less intense, a player only has to deal with questions from one other player and even then, there's a maximum of 2 questions to answer.
And those answered are never really challenged, because the Prince play must use logic and reasoning to try and figure their choice. When a player lies to the Prince, figuring out it's a lie will provide information in itself.

So I think Princess Legend is a 'tolerable' hidden role game - which for me means it's quite good - for that sort of game.

14th May 2019.

Tuesday has rolled around again and that can only mean gaming night at 'The Sovereigns'

First game of the night is Mysterium'. Mysterium is like a ghostly version of Cluedo.

It's quite unusual in that it is both an asymmetrical and co-operative game.

One player takes on the role of the ghost of a murder victim.
All the remaining players assume the roles of psychics or mediums.
The game takes place during a 'seance' in which the ghost will feed all the other characters with confusing and strange imagery, hoping they will figure out the murder

The ghost player knows who their murderer is and is trying to communicate this to the other players.

What's in a game?

The ghost player sits behind a screen which contains information pertinent to them. The ghost player also keeps a deck of cards behind the screen.

Each of the other players is given a character to play in the form of a character portrait printed on what can only be described as sort of 'pocket'. The art for the characters is good and makes them look suitability exotic for people that can communicate with the dead. Each player is also given a meeple.

Markers are set out for the 3 different clue types. These represent the classic Cluedo cards for person, location and weapon.

The game also has a vintage looking clock which serves as a turn counter.

Before the game starts the ghost player determines who the murderer and suspects are.
The in line with each respective clue marker they layout a number of cards (dependant upon difficulty). Thus next to the person marker, they would lay the murderer, suspects and innocent people. Next to the location marker, they would lay the murder site, suspected sites and unrelated sites - and the same for the murder weapon.

And now you're pretty much ready to go.