22nd November 2022

Tuesday is here again and that means we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for a evening of gaming.

Space... is it the final frontier? I mean it's pretty large with enough room for separate civilisations to expand without impinging on each other's territory. Except in Cosmic Encounter, it's not! Players take on the roles of one of numerous alien civilisations with the purpose of invading other player's planets in this game of bidding and bluffing.

• Cards: Cosmic Encounter uses a variety of cards.
  Destiny cards: This deck is used to determine who the active player will attack.
  ​Encounter cards: By far the most numerous type of card and form the cosmic deck. As the name suggests, these are used during encounters between players. They contain cards numbered 1-to-40 as well as 'negotiate' and 'morph' cards.
  Artefact and tech cards: These are cards that can also be used during encounters and add extra effects or actions to an encounter.
  Flare cards: Flare cards are specific to each race and pertinent flare cards for the aliens in play are added to the cosmic deck. Unlike most cards, once a player has a flare card for their alien race, it is not discarded when played.
  Reinforcement cards: These can be played after the encounter cards have been revealed to alter the outcome.

The component quality is all good, the tiles and tokens are made of suitably sturdy board while cards are average.
The spaceships are plastic with a nice bit of detail and being able to stack them keeps the game area relatively clutter free.

In terms of art direction, the tiles are colourful and mostly ​space-themed with the planet tiles looking like well, planets. The hyperspace and warp tiles are appropriately cosmic looking.
Artwork is used sparingly on cards with space (SIC) given over to text instead.
For the most part, illustrations are reserved for the alien sheets and used to represent the various different alien races. This artwork is fairly good with a lot of diverse and interesting sci-fi artwork.

Cosmic Encounter has little in the way of iconography, numbers are used on encounter cards but otherwise text is used to convey information.
​Nothing here is tricky to understand

How's it play?
Setup

• ​Players:
  Alien sheet: Shuffle the flare cards into a face-down deck and deal 2 to each player.
  Each player should then take the alien sheets corresponding to the flare cards and choose one sheet for this game, players should take any tokens relevant to the sheet they have chosen.
  Home system: Give each player the planet tiles and space ships in their player colour.
  Each player should put out their planet tiles in a row, they should then stack 4 spaceships on each tile.
• Central playing area:
  ​Warp tile: Place the warp tile in the middle of the central playing area.
  Players should place their colony tokens at the '0' starting spot.
  Destiny deck: Remove cards that would refer to any unused player colours for the game and shuffle the remaining into a face-down deck.
  Cosmic deck: Add the flare cards for the chosen alien sheets to the encounter cards then shuffle them into a face-down cosmic deck.
  Starting hand: Deal 8 cards face-down to each player.
• First player: Determine the starting player.

On to play
In Cosmic Encounter players will be trying to create colonies on other players' home systems in the form of land their spaceships on those planets while also preventing their own system from being colonised.
The game employs a traditional turn order with the active player resolving their turn before the game progresses to the player on their left.
Each turn consists of 6 phases.

• Regroup: The active player may retrieve one of their spaceships from the warp (If possible.) and add it to a planet in their home system.
• Destiny: A card is drawn from the destiny deck and immediately resolved.
  Colour: If a colour card is drawn from the destiny deck, the player with that player colour will be the active player's target for their 'encounter' (Or attack really!).
  In some circumstances, the active player may target one of their own planets if it has been totally overrun by other players.
  Wild: If a wild card is drawn, then the active player must choose which player to target.
  Special: These are unique cards that have specific outcomes. If a special card is drawn, it will contain text to explain how it is resolved.
• Attack!: The active player takes the hyperspace tile and points the er... pointy end at one of the planets in the targeted system. Then they add 1-4 spaceships sourced in any combination from any of their planets to the other end, signifying how many ships they commit to the encounter.
• Alliances: Now the active player who is considered the attacker may invite any number of other players to join with them in the attack.
  ​The targeted player who is now considered the defender may also invite any number of other players to join with their defence.
  Once invites have gone out, the invited players may choose to accept or decline the invitation. If a player is invited to both sides, they must choose one side only or decline.
  Any player that accepts the invitation to form an alliance must commit 1-4 of their ships to their alliance's side by placing them on the hyperspace tile or alongside targeted planet respectively.
• Planning: During this phase both the attacker and defender choose a card and play it face-down.
• Reveal: Now both player simultaneously flip their cards face-up and calculate their values which is the card's value plus the number of spaceships committed to the encounter.
  Usually, whoever has the highest total value wins the encounter, ties go in the favour of the defender. However, there are several ways this can change. 
  Reinforcements: After cards are revealed, reinforcement cards may be played to alter scores, this can be done the attacker, defender or any of their respective allies.
  Negotiate: If either the attacker or defender has played a 'negotiate' card, they immediately lose the encounter but as compensation, they get to take cards from their opponent.
  Double negotiate: If both attacker and defender played negotiate cards, then they get 1 minute of real-time to actually negotiate an actual settlement between them!
  If they fail to reach a deal, then both players lose 3 spaceships to the warp tile.
  Morph cards: When a morph card is played, it 'adapts' to have the same value as the card played by the opposing player, essentially negating it.
  Resolution: Once all cards and special abilities have been taken into account and a winner has been determined, the results must be resolved.
  • Attacker wins: If this is the case, all the defender's ships (And those of their allies.) are placed on to the warp tile.
    All of the spaceships committed to the attack by the attacker as well as allied attacker's spaceships are placed on to the targeted planet. Each respective attacking player gets to advance their colony token 1 space on the score tracker.
    Finally, if the successful offensive was the player's first action, they get a second.
  • Defender wins: If this occurs, all of the spaceships committed to the attack by the attacker and their allies are sent to the warp tile.
    The defender's spaceships are unaffected and those committed by allies are safely returned to their planets.
    The score tracker remains unchanged but allies of the successful defender also get to recover ships from the warp tile and/or draw cards as a reward.
• Next player: Once the active player taken their available action(s), play moves on to the player on their left.

There are some other situational rules and variants but this pretty much sums up the essence of what goes on in Cosmic Encounters.

Endgame
The first player to reach 5 on the score tracker wins!
Because of alliances and such, it is possible for more than one player to reach the 5 score at once. if this is the case, all those players share the victory.

Overall
​Mechanically, Cosmic Encounter is straightforward, at its core it's essentially a single blind bid auctioning game albeit one where players bid within the constraints of their limited hand of encounter cards in order to win encounters
On a basic level, a player only has to win 5 bids to win the game.

There is of course more to it than that.

It's vital that players will have to exploit the stronger cards in their hand and mitigate the risk from weaker cards. High value cards are obviously useful because they can win encounters but weak cards can also have a use.
A low value card can be used as a bluff or ruse to flush out an opponent's higher value card, potentially altering what a later outcome might be. Or, if a player think's they're going to lose, why not throw the lowest value card into the mix? 
Negotiate cards can also prove useful when a player knows they are going to lose and can be used to not only fill their hand but deplete the cards of an opponent.
Managing the luck of the draw is vital for victory.

The alien sheets can throw some real curveballs into the game and how players behave. Some of the sheets provide some really radical changes to strategies.

For example; in one game I played as the 'Spiff' who have the ability can crash land a spaceship on a planet if they are a part of an attack that loses badly.
It suddenly introduced a whole new dynamic into attacks which involved the Spiff (And I involved the Spiff with as many attacks as I could!) because defending players were now faced with the conundrum of having to worry about winning too big which might mean playing a lower value card instead and the risk of doing that meant that they might just flat out lose if I played a high value card! Choices, choices!

With 50 different alien sheets available in the base game (With more in expansions.) it means there will be a lot of variation in games and a lot of unique interactions from game-to-game. 

The rules for the destiny deck can also throw a curveball into the game.
I feel one of the primary purposes of the destiny deck is prevent a 'pick on a player' tactic and in this regard it does it well.
It also means that game has constant shifting alliances, 2 players have been allies in a previous turn but the destiny deck could quickly have one targeting the other in the next run.

This brings me to the next thing that's really strong in Cosmic Encounter; which is player interactivity.
Players will be bidding and bluffing against each other, forming temporary alliances, looking to exploit their abilities and take advantage of their unique ability and circumstances as they might arise.
I also think that the quality of the experience the game provides will in part rely on the people playing it. If players buy into the somewhat boisterous, confrontational and luck-based gameplay, then it'll be a positive, enjoyable experience. 

I will add that this game has a lot direct confrontation between players and a hefty dose of 'take that' that goes on as well.
If you find this sort of thing unappealing, it's probably a safe bet to say that you won't like this game and to be fair, sometimes I'm not in the mood for this kind of game.

Otherwise, it's hard to find fault with Cosmic Encounter, the rules are quick to learn and presents players which meaningful decisions to make whenever they attack or have to defend - which is reasonably often, they'll also be faced with whether to join alliances or not and deal with the outcome of those decisions.

Cosmic Encounters is a lot of fun to play and worth trying.

12th July 2022

Another Tuesday is here and it means we're at the The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club for an evening of gaming fun.

In Vino Morte (In wine there is death!) is a much more depressing phrase than in vino veritas but is this a more depressing game?
​Well... since it's about poisoning your friends to death, I'll let you decide...

What's in a game?

• Cards: The game uses a deck of 16 cards; half depict a bottle of wine and the other a bottle of poison.

That's it for components, this is going to be a very short full game blog!

The cards are a standard quality you'd expect from a modern game. Like all games from Button Shy Games, this comes packaged in a wallet.

The 2 pieces of artwork used for In Vino Morte have a sort of flat colour illustration style, it looks bright and pleasant.

There's no iconography or text in the game and it's only 2 images contain a bunch of grapes or a skull & crossbones. It's all self explanatory.

How's it play?
Setup

• Dealer: Determine which player should be the dealer and give them all 16 cards.

On to play
Each round, cards representing wine will be dealt out to all players and may or may not contain poison.
The objective is to avoid drinking the poison and stay alive and last player standing is the winner.

• Deal cards: The dealer does not shuffle the cards, instead they keep all of them in their hand and decides which cards to give out.
  The dealer should then give 1 card face-down card to each player, including themselves.
• Drink or swap: Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, in turn order, each player must choose whether to drink the wine or swap their card.
  Drink: If the player chooses drink, they must flip their card and deal with the consequences.
  If it shows wine, then they survive the round.
  If poison is on the other side, then that player is eliminated from the round... Ohhh... nasty!
  ​Swap: With this choice, the player swaps their face-down card with any other player who also has a face-down card.
  Neither card is revealed at this time.
• End of round: Play continues until each player except the dealer has chosen to drink or swap - the dealer never makes the choice.​
  Then, one-by-one and in turn order, each player - ending with the dealer - flips any card that's face-down and is either safe if it's wine or eliminated if it's poison.
• Next round: The first player to the left of the dealer who is still in the game collects up all 16 cards and a new round begins with the new dealer giving out cards to the remaining players.

Endgame
Play continues until only 1 player remains and they are declared the winner.

Overall
There's not much I can say about In Vino Morte other than it's probably the most unalloyed, unfiltered bluffing game I've played.
It's simplicity and accessible rules make it a game of guessing and second guessing, players must try and anticipate what their opponents' motives will be.

However, there's definitely a peculiar quirk and asymmetrical gameplay at work here.
When a player is the the dealer, they'll have the opportunity to notably alter the playing time. E.G., The more poison cards the dealer doles out, the more players will be eliminated. A bold dealer could give out poison to all other players and see where it goes for example! I imagine it will present dealers with some intriguing propositions.

In Vino Morte also has player elimination which is something I'm not fond of and usually consider a bad thing. Luckily, the game is almost a spectator sport and even when you're knocked out, it's still fascinating to watch how the remaining rounds will play out. It helps that it's also a pretty fast game to get through.

With a quick play time and easily understood rules it can make a great little filler or party game, especially since it plays up to 8 - provided of course that the players like this type of game.

If you don't like bluffing games, then this is one to avoid; but if you do, then you'll probably love In Vino Morte and it's definitely one to try.

19th September 2021

Sunday afternoon gaming at The Sovereigns continued with Love Letter: Batman.

Love Letter: Batman is of course a licensed reskin of the most excellent Love Letter, a game that we've played a lot of in the past.
I'm not going to talk about Love Letter: Batman too much because it differs from the original in only 2 ways - more on that later.
Love Letter: Batman cleverly maps characters from the Batman milieu into the game.
​Batman becomes the guard, which when you think about it makes sense, since he's able to immediately take out enemies if he's smart enough.
The Joker becomes the princess, power in some situations, but liability in others and he's one everyone's looking.
Robin becomes the handmaiden, protecting the player by drawing enemy attacks away with his brightly coloured garb!

The cards in Love Letter: Batman pretty standard quality and are all illustrated with suitably comic book styled artwork which all looks the part.
The game also utilises bat-symbol themed scoring tokens - pretty cool.

The rule changes
Love Letter: batman changes 2 rules from the original.

• 7 points to win: Winning Love Letter: Batman requires players to score 7 points, whereas the original required 7-4 points for 2-4 player games. This ties in with the other change, which is...
• Batman can score extra points: This makes Batman overpowered and well, I suppose this is at least thematically accurate!
  This occurs whenever the active player uses a Batman card to successfully guess an opponent's card and that card was a villain - which it most likely will be as Batman cards can't be targeted this way and the only other hero is Robin. If this condition is met, the active player immediately scores a point.

Those are the rule changes and once again a rule has been introduced which allows players to score points mid-round, it's a concept I really don't like. It ruins the game's tension by allowing players to reach the victory threshold and essentially win the game before the round is over. It's so anti-climatic.
I've heard it said that it this rule makes the game play quicker, but the higher victory threshold for 3-4 player kind of negates that.

Conversely; in classic Love Letter, even if one player is 1 point away from winning and all the other players are at 0 points, until that player has won that final hand to win that final point, it's not over. Yes, it'd be a hard turnaround and a longshot, but it doesn't change the fact that nothing is over 'til everything is over.

Want my opinion? Just play Love Letter: Batman as classic Love Letter. Yes, it does make having this version sort of of pointless, but the classic version is the best version and there's nothing stopping you yelling dinner, dinner, dinner dinner, BATMAN when you play a card.

10th December 2019

It's a Tuesday evening in Woking and we're at 'The Sovereigns' with the board game club.

The first game of the night was 'Cockroach Poker'.
Now I mean this in a good way: But Cockroach Poker is quite possibly the most horrible game of all time.
It's a horrible game all about horribly lying and bluffing.

At the end of one game a player said to me. "Can we please now play a game where we don't all hate each other!".

That sums Cockroach Poker pretty nicely.

What's in a game?
Cockroach Poker consists of nothing more or less than a deck of 64 cards. There are 8 types of card (All based on types of 'horrible' creature.) and 8 copies of each type.
Because my blog demands a bullet-point list, i thought I'd list what's on the cards.

​All the cards are well illustrated with stylised pictures of all the 'creepy-crawlies'. The art hasn't skimped on either, there could have been just 8 illustrations for the 8 types. But they are different pictures for each card, so 64 in total.

How's it play?
Setup: Deal out the entire deck to all players. Players must keep their hand of cards secret.

Cockroach Poker is a game about trying to guess whether the other players are speaking the truth or lying through their teeth

• The active player takes any card from their hand, places it face-down on the playing area and pushes it towards another second player. When doing so, the active player must state what creature is on the card. This statement can be true or false.
• The second player now becomes the active player. Without looking at the card, the must now make a choice, accept the card or pass the card.

Accepting the card:

• If the second player chooses to accept the card. Still without looking at the card, they must state whether they think the first player was telling the truth or lying (Whether the first players statement is true or false.).
• The card is then flipped face-up.
• If the second player correctly surmised whether the first player was truthful or lying, then the first player must place the card face-up in their own playing area.
• If the second player failed to gauge the whether the first player was speaking truthfully or not, then the second player places the card in their playing area.

Passing the card:

• If the second player chooses the pass the card, they (And only they.) can now look at the card.
• As in the first step, the second player must push the card (Still face-down.) to another third player and state what creature is on the card. Again, this statement can be true or false, the active player is not required to honour the statement made by the first player. Thus the second player can contradict the first player.
• Now the third player is faced with the choice to accept or pass the card and the above steps are repeated.
• A card cannot be passed to a player who has already received it. So if a player is the last person to receive the card, it sucks to be them! They cannot pass it on and must try and guess if the player who passed it to them is telling the truth or lying.
  
• Play continues until a player has put the card in their playing area. In this case they become the active player, chooses a card pushes it to another player again, starting the process anew.
  

Endgame
Their are 2 ways the game can end.

The game will immediately end when any player has put the 4th card of a single type into their playing are.
Or when any player must play a card to another player, but has no more cards in their hand. 

In both cases, when this occurs, that player is the loser and all other players are winners!

Overall
Cockroach Poker is a clever little bluffing game. Telling the truth is equally bad for players as lying, so there's no 'easy' get-out by telling the truth.

Having a card pushed towards and trying to guess whether your 'friend' is lying or not can be a stress. But when a player chooses to pass the card, it doesn't get them out of hot water. It just changes the source of the stress, now players are hoping that their opponents are can't see through their statement.

I've also seen players counting the number of cards that have already been played before making a choice. But it doesn't matter because the whole deck has been dealt out to players!

Not only is the game negative and horrible, so is the end. The game only plays to the first loser and everybody else wins! No one wants to be the sole loser!

So in summing up: Cockroach Poker is a horrible, horrible game and everyone should play it.

5th February.

2nd game of the night at 'The Sovereigns'.

Loot is a little card game by Reiner Knizia about chasing wealthy merchant ships with your pirate boats.
Perhaps this game should be combined with Century Spice Road which we had just finished playing!

Loot is a fairly simple looking game with some hidden depth.
Loot has different 4 types of card.

• Merchant Ships, valued from 2 to 8 'gold'
• Pirate Ships, their strength ranges from 1-4 'skull & crossbones and they come in 4 colours.
• 4 Pirate Captains, in the same 4 colours as the pirate ships.
• 1 Admiral.

​Everyone starts with a hand of 6 cards.
During your turn you check for winning battles, (more on this below). Then you draw a card or play a card.
What cards you can play depend on what's already been played.

• You can always play a merchant ship.
• You can only play a pirate ship if there's a merchant ship for them to plunder. If there's more than 1 merchant ship in play, you can choose which to attack, you can even attack a merchant ship you played yourself. If someone else is attacking a particular merchant ship that you want to attack, you cannot play a pirate of a colour they have already played, (so if someone else is attacking a merchant with a blue pirate ship, you can't attack the same merchant ship with a blue pirate). If you've already played a pirate ship, you can another of the same colour to reinforce your attack.
• You can only play a captain on a pirate ship you've played, the captain's colour must match the colour of the pirate it is being played.
• You can only play the Admiral on a merchant ship that you played.

If you can't play a card, you must draw or discard a card, you can never discard a merchant ship.

Right at the start of your turn, you check for winning battles. This involves looking at all the merchant ships in play, if your pirate attack against a merchant is stronger than any other pirate's (or is uncontested), then you claim the merchant ship - all other cards are discarded. If the attack strength of 2 or more players is identical, then there's a stalemate and the merchant has not been captured by anyone.
Pirate captains and the Admiral act as a trump cards and win a battle, regardless of the attacks strength of other players.

Play continues until the deck is depleted. The player that captured merchant ships with the highest combined value of gold wins (any merchant ships in your hand at the end of the game are deducted from your final score).

And that's pretty much it. Good, clean, wholesome, pirating fun. A great little filler game, quick to play and easy to learn. With enough strategy to keep it interesting.