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19th May 2022 It's a Thursday and I'm enjoying an evening of gaming in Aldershot for the first time in actual years! Take that Covid-19! Cho chooo! Switch & Signal is a cooperative board game about managing train schedules, that's right - you're playing the generously proportion controller and how do you control these schedules. With switches and signals of course! What's in a game?
Quality-wise, all of Switch & Signal's components are made to the usual high standard we've come to expect from modern game and nothing feels particularly flimsy. The game makes good use of a wooden components, especially the dice that are nicely rounded and is something I always like. The notable components are the little plastic trains which each contain a space to put a wooden goods cube. The art is good, the boards are colourful and uncluttered with some nice illustrations for various cities. The art on the cards is equally good. The game's use of iconography is straightforward, easily understood and doesn't prove an obstacle. On to Play Setup This set up is for the European beginning default game, the rules provide options to alter the game's challenge and the U.S. side has some different rules.
On to play The objective in Switch & Signal is to collect all 8 cubes from the 4 cities using the trains and deliver them all to Marseille. Switch & Signal functions much like a lot of cooperative games; that is the active player flips a card and resolves it's actions on the board. Then the active players takes their action(s).
Endgame Play continues until one of the following conditions is met. If the players run out of departure cards and they have to draw one, then they collectively lose. If all 8 cubes are delivered, then the players immediately win. Overall
If you play a lot of cooperative games, the basic mechanics will be familiar here: Turn over a card and resolve it's action which will create obstacles for the players, then have them perform some actions and choose between progressing the objective or mitigating the problems caused by the drawing of cards. Rinse and repeat. Something about Switch & Signal feels a little different though. Maybe its because the departure cards are so contextual. The trains being moved by the departure cards are both the cause of problems for players and also the means to victory. On more than one occasion, we wanted to move a train but didn't want to spend a card to do so, instead we left it to the 'game' and departure cards to do the job for us. It's pretty rare for players to want the 'bad things happen' card to actually do something in a cooperative game. How trains are moved is vital. Not only do players have to move them into cities to pick up goods, they'll need to manage the different speeds they move at. Getting a fast train behind a slower one is a disaster, no two ways about it. This is exacerbated by the random nature in which trains are deployed on to the board by the dice. Players will also to manage the titular switches and signals. They'll look to create clear routes with full green lights to the port and funnel trains down that route in the correct order. It's a real balancing act though, it's hard to get the junction points where you want them and there's are never enough green lights. I have to say, that when it works, it feels extremely satisfying. I've never been a train controller but Switch & Signal genuinely makes me feel a little like one as I think about how to prioritise trains and set up routes with minimum card expenditure. This brings me to a final point about the game. I said earlier that being forced to discard a departure card is not good and I meant it! Switch & Signal is a well balanced game and it seemed every victory, every loss came down to the wire, came down to the last departure card or two and losing one felt very risky. I found it a lot of fun. If you like train-themed games, Switch & Signal is worth a look, how many cooperative trains games are there? If you like cooperative games, you really should give this a try. It's blend of familiar and unique mechanics makes it easy to get into yet different to other cooperative games.
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2nd May 2022 It's a bank holiday Monday and we're round Simon's for some gaming fun. Waterdeep, famed city in The Forgotten Realms and home to many a adventurer, ready to brave the wilderness in the search for treasure and glory... oh wait... This Dungeons & Dragons setting licensed game is nothing to do with Dungeon & Dragons... It's actually a political-intrigue themed worker placement game! What's in the game?
There's a lot of excellent art throughout the game. I'm not sure if it's been created specifically for Lords of Waterdeep or sourced from the large amount of Forgotten Realms/D&D artwork that's been produced over the decades but either way, it's good quality and generously used on all the game's cards. The other piece of significant artwork is the map on the board, it's very well detailed, although it does make the board look a little 'busy'. Regardless of this I still quite like it. The game does use a fair amount of iconography, for the vast majority of icons, it's pretty clear what they mean and there was minimal need to refer to the rules. How's it play? Setup
On to play Lords of Waterdeep uses the traditional turn structure with the active player taking an action and play progressing to their left. When someone is the active player, they can act in 2 phases. Firstly they must take their action, a player can only pass when they have no more agents to play. finally, the active player may complete a quest if possible.
Endgame The game ends at the end of the 8th round and goes to final scoring. VPs come from the follwing sources.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Now, I'm by no means whatsoever particularly knowledgeable about the Forgotten Realms setting but it's quite impressive how Lords of Waterdeep manages to marry a worker placement game with the flavour of the setting, or at least a part of it that takes place in Waterdeep. It's not vital to the rules or gameplay but conversely, neither is it jarring or hindering. The game is all about optimising actions to gain required resources as efficiently as possible to complete quests which must also be acquired while at the same time trying to predict and out manoeuvre other players: Most of the locations that confer resources will only have space for a single worker, making it unlikely that players will get all the resources they want in a single round, prioritising is very important because completing quests is very important, not only do quests provide VPs, they can confer useful benefits as well. This ties in with the Lord cards which are essentially secret objectives. Not only may players be competing for certain quest types and their respective resources, there's also a higher level of play where resources and quests can be denied to other players, provided their objectives can be guessed of course. The advanced buildings is an interesting proposition, it adds an element of emergent strategy to the game, changing the status quo, giving players new options and making them re-asses their plans. Constructing a useful building also has the benefit of earning the builder its bonus and inevitably, it'll be used by other players. There's not much else to say really, the gameplay is solid if somewhat unremarkable; players of worker placements games will find themselves on familiar ground here which may or may not be good thing - depending on your mileage. Perhaps the playing time is a touch too long for what it is but none of this stops Lords of Waterdeep from ultimately being an enjoyable game. If the Forgotten Realms setting doesn't put you off for some reason and you want to try a worker placement game, then Lords of Waterdeep is probably worth a look. 1st May 2022 It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for an evening of gaming. Azul; not a game about a villainous god-entity from Ghostbusters but actually a game about creating mosaic, decorative wall patterns with multi coloured tiles. My friend's a plasterer, wonder if he'd be good at this! Caveat: We've only ever played Azul digitally. What's in a game?
Azul doesn't make use of icons and the relationship between tokens and a player board is clear. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Azul, the player's objective is to place tokens on to their respective spots on the wall grid of their player board, which scores them VPs. This is done by filling in the horizontal lines in the pattern lines grid; players must collect tokens of the type they need and place them in the spaces on the respective horizontal line. Depending on the line, it will require 1-5 tokens to fill a line. When a line is filled, one of those tokens can be placed in the matching space on that line at the end of the round. All tokens will score 1 or more VPs when placed, tokens can also score again at the game end. Azul makes use of a traditional turn order, with the active player performing their action (Which will involve taking 1 or more tokens of the same type.) before play progresses to the player on the left.
Endgame When any horizontal line in the wall grid on any player's board has been filled, the endgame is triggered. The current end of round actions and scoring are completed and the game goes to final, bonus scoring. Bonus VPs can be scored scored by the following:
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
On a rudimentary level, Azul's mechanics involve drafting handfuls of tokens and then placing them on to a board where their relative positioning scores varying amounts of VPs. It's a mechanic (Or a variation of that mechanic.) that have been employed in several other games and I'd say that Azul is a mid-weight iteration of it. As written the rules feel a little opaque and counter-intuitive but in application, they're pretty straightforward. Where Azul get its weightiness comes from two areas of the rules; how the drafting - particularly drafting from mats works and then where and when tiles should go on the grids. As a basic concept, collecting as many tokens as possible to fill out the pattern lines and consequently get tokens on the wall grid is the way to go. However, there's more to it than. For example, simply collecting too many tokens can sent the excess to the floor line and cost VPs, this is more important than it sounds, because as tokens are taken from the mats, it's inevitable that other tokens will build up in the centre and trying to predict this can be very important. Depending on circumstances, a lot of tokens of a particular type may well build up in the centre. A player may want 4 red tokens for example, should they try and take them in drips and drabs from several mats over several turns or wait for them to accumulate in the centre? Provided of that they do accumulate in the centre, what if too many go to the centre? There's definitely a higher level of play where watching what other players are doing is important. Quite often it's clear what they're prioritising, what they want or don't want in the next few turns. If they have a single token in the 5-space line on the left, it's likely they'll be looking to fill that out. Conversely, if they've already got 1 or more scoring tokens on the right side, they'll be unlikely or unable to use more of those tokens. Being able to predict other player's objectives will help when making decisions. It can also allow a player to try and deny tokens to other players and curiously, on some occasions force other players to take tokens they don't want. Players will also want to think about how and when to place their scoring tokens. Putting them down willy-nilly is a sure way to minimise points. Obviously in order to optimise points, tokens should ideally be put on to the wall adjacent to other tokens. Placing them vertically is a good way to go, since completed vertical lines earn an additional 7 VPs each, unless a player is looking to end the game, in which case they can go for the horizontal line! This brings me to an interesting facet in the mechanics, scoring the diagonal, i.e., putting all the tokens of 1 type on to the wall grid scores the biggest bonus; 10 VPs but as they are diagonal, they can't score off of each other! Additionally, once a diagonal of a type has been completed, the player can no longer score tokens of that type at all, collecting those tokens will now just incur penalty points in the floor line. Should a player hold off getting the diagonal until later which lowers the risk of sending tokens to the floor line or wait? Waiting will mean risking not completing it at all. I have to say I'm not fond of mechanics which lose players points especially if it can occur out of their control, it irritates like a unreachable itch and can be a little stress inducing. I find that's the case with Azul as well. However, having said that, the truth is; this is what makes Azul a good game and gives it depth. It means that collecting tokens either earns VPs (Or contributes towards acquiring VPs.) or loses VPs. It's always a meaningful decision. Other iterations of these mechanics are a little less stressful, brain-boiling and perhaps more accessible. But if depth is what you're looking along with a dollop indirect interaction between players, then Azul is worth a try. 19th April 2022 It's a Tuesday and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club. Mesopotamia; source of much history, a birthplace of the world's early civilisations. Also the source of many board games, one of them being Babylonia. Take on the role of a merchant dynasty and attempt to create the most lucrative trade routes. What's in a game?
Babylonia's components are all good. the cards are actually as chunky as the tokens. The remaining components. the tokens and ziggurats are all constructed of wood and feel high quality. The stands are a nice touch. The artwork used on the board is good and portrays what I imagine to be a suitably middle-eastern landscape for Mesopotamia. It is perhaps a little too busy and distracts the eye, however, the hexes help to make the layout clear. The cards all use the same illustration which is a little bland. For the most part, iconography is easily understood. Only some of the ziggurat cards are not immediately clear and will require looking up in the rule book but that only applies when and if the card comes into play. Nothing that would be a problem or approaching a dealbreaker. How's it play? Setup
On to play Babylonia uses a standard turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play moves to the left. In their turn, there are 3 phases active player must complete.
Endgame Play continues until 1 of the following 2 criteria are met: A player has no tokens on their stand. Or There are only 1 or 0 city tiles left on the board. In either case, the game ends immediately! Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
If you were to look at a game of Babylonia in progress, you'd be forgiven for thinking that with all these tokens in play at the same time that it's a complicated game but it's not. From the rules write up above there's not too much to learn but like all good games, there's a lot to think about. Right from the start Babylonia provides players with meaningful decisions to make and several paths to scoring VPs which can be prioritised. Often these will vary in value contextually and in relation to other decisions. There will be short term and long term goals. Take ziggurats for example, a player may put tokens next a number of different ziggurats to score points as efficiently as possible but may also choose to concentrate on a single one in order to secure a card. However, taking too long to gain majority on a Ziggurat may lose you some actions. Cards themselves will change in importance, those with continuous ability will be most exploitable in the early game and those with once-only bonuses will be important in the late game - provided of course, that someone else hasn't beaten you to the punch. Farms and cities have an interesting relationship, getting cities quicker than other players can earn a lot of VPs when some farms are scored or more city tiles are acquired. But city tiles need to be surrounded to score - unlike farms which can score immediately. Sometimes It may also take more actions to surround a city; if it looks like a player is going to get majority in a city (Or ziggurat actually.) other players wont be incentivised to complete it early for another player's benefit. Finally, there's the network of tokens that players will create, their trade routes. Finding ways to connect nobles to matching city tiles on other parts of the board can be a good source of points. Especially if a noble can be connect to multiple cities, a city can only be scored once so getting another use out of already played token is useful. It's here small token plays can have big outcomes. Sometimes players will want to put specific nobles into player or sometimes use farmers for rapid expansion. All of this is dependant on what tokens get drawn though. It's likely that something will not go to plan thanks to other players. Adapting to circumstances can also be important. Paying attention to what other players are doing is also vital since - apart from what's on a player's stand - everything is open. It means that it's likely that getting majority will eventually become a race as players' objectives clash and anticipating those objectives can make a difference. With straightforward rules and a brisk playing time, Babylonia is fairly accessible but also provides players with meaningful decisions. I enjoyed it and would recommend it. 23rd March 2022 It's a Wednesday night and we're round Simon's for an evening of gaming. 'You see, in this world, there’s two kinds of people, my friend – those who write dodgy blogs about board games, and those who read dodgy blogs about board games. You read dodgy blogs about board games!' Western Legends is a western themed open-world sandbox board game where players are free to pursue several differing roads to success. What's in a game?
The quality of the components in Western Legends is high, the cards, boards and tokens are all well made, the dice are plastic but nicely rounded and finished in a cool looking black and gold colour scheme. I like the gold nuggets and always appreciate the usage of wooden components. The plastic miniatures are unpainted but have a reasonable amount of detail. While essentially unnecessary, the general store tray is eye-catching and looks great on the table. The use of art is solid throughout the game and fits the western theme very well, illustrations feature on all the cards and are high quality, the character card portraits are the standout here. The board also looks good, with its map-like artwork. All-in-all well presented. Quite a few icons are used in Western Legends, most of it is clear and easily comprehended. Players will probably end up referring to the rulebook on several occasions, however, it's likely that this will be as much to get a handle on rules as to decipher the game's iconography. How's it play? Setup
On to play Before discussing how a turn plays out, some rules needed to be explained.
Actions Beginning with the first player and progressing to the left, each player takes their turn. The bulk of active player's turn will consist of 3 actions, which can be taken in any order or multiple times. Most of the actions a player can take will be contextual to their location or proximity to other players or NPCs. The turn order is a follows:
There a large number of contextual actions available in Western Legends obviously depending on the situation.
If the active player is on a space with an icon, they may trigger that action. There several types of location and some have multiple options.
When the active player has finished their 3 actions, the following events occur.
Endgame Play continues until someone reaches 15/20/25 Legendary Points (As decided by players for a short/average/long game.) which triggers the game end and all players get one final turn. After this players tot up their final VP total (Legendary Points.) which comes from various sources.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
It might seem from this fairly lengthy write up that Western Legends is complex but this isn't the case. There are lots of options and choices in this open world game that players can take but the implementation of this through the rules is actually quite straightforward. Western Legends has enough flexibility to give players interesting choices to follow and provide a varied experience but doesn't bog them down with too many rules. This wide variety of choices provides players with several differing approaches to accumulating VPs and one of the interesting aspects is how these elements interact with each other and nudge players into also doing so. For example: Prospecting can be a good way to go, mining and selling gold nuggets earns both VPs and cash (Which can be spent for even more VPs!), provided that the player can get to the bank. Outlaws will want to steal that gold for themselves (Or engage in other dastardly behaviour.), which in turn increases their wanted rating. For bandits, this is a good thing, because their wanted rating has the ongoing effect of constantly increasing their VPs. Consequently, it means that players on the marshal track will be motivated to hunt down and arrest outlaws to prevent this occurring. Players will want to watch what others are doing and if necessary, adjust strategies to respond to other player actions. Having said that, the open nature of the game means that players could also simply avoid each other and it becomes a race to get to the Legendary Point threshold. These differing playstyles means it's hard to describe what a typical game would be like to play because there really isn't a typical game. Western Legends is also a bit of a RPG-adjacent game but handles those elements fairly simply. There are no experience points or levelling-up here, but purchasing item cards serves the purpose of increasing characters' abilities and thus money is a bit of a stand-in for experience points. Additionally; from story cards and character objectives to tales that arise from emergent game play, the game is full of appropriate narrative beats. As a result, the game's old-west theme feels strongly implemented. If I had a criticism, it's perhaps that the playtime feels a little long, however, I never felt like there was too long spent in downtime between turns. As far as sandbox games go, I definitely think that Western Legends is one of the better examples. The implementation of the western theme is fun and fits well. If sandbox game are what interests you and you like the old-west theme and presentation, it's worth a try. 15th March 2022 We're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for some Tuesday evening entertainment. Four Gardens is a game about you guessed it... four gardens, it's also about spinning a pagoda! I'm not sure if Spinning Pagodas would be a better name or not? Why are players spinning a pagoda? Apparently, the pagoda contains some gods! Who... I guess... like... being spun? What's in a game?
The resource tokens felt like they were wooden and the wooden cubes were pretty standard wooden cube components, which is something I like. The tiles were standard quality card tile and fine, I thought having tiles with little hole to hold resource tokens was a pretty smart move. The card were also pretty standard quality from what I could tell. From the large, eye-catching and rotating pagoda to the tactile resource tokens shaped and coloured identically to their icons in the game; Four Gardens has excellent presentation. The backs of the cards which, when placed together form the panoramic views of the titular feature excellent, colourful and interesting art. Four Gardens features a fair amount of iconography, from the 4 scoring tracks and types of gardens to symbols for resources and different actions available on cards. For the most part, it's instantly understandable and there should be few problems with the iconography. How's it play? Setup
On to play As the name suggests, the objective is to create 4 garden panoramas using the backs of the cards. Four Gardens uses the traditional turn, with the active player acting with play then progressing to the player on the left. During their turn, the active must perform exactly 3 actions. Each action also requires the player to play or discard one of the cards in their hand. There are 4 actions that can be performed, these can be performed in any order the player sees fit. The actions are:
Endgame Depending on the player count, once 8-10 panorama cards have been constructed by any player, play goes into the endgame and the current round is completed. Players calculated VPs earned from the 4 scoring tracks and points they may have gotten from a bonus VP track. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
I'll start by discussing the pagoda - the game's most obvious feature. Is it a gimmick mechanic? Maybe. Does it work well? Definitely. It's also quite a unique mechanic and not something I've seen anywhere else. When used in conjunction with the rule limiting how many resources can be collected on the planning tile, it forces players to really think about how they have to manipulate the pagoda to get the resources they need: It takes an action to empty a planning tile that's been filled unnecessarily and that's an action that could be used elsewhere. I think it's a set of mechanics that works very well. Talking about the pagoda does lead me to one gripe: Which is the rule where all players should sit around the pagoda at 90' angles. Players don't always have the right gaming space to accommodate this and while strictly speaking, it's not necessary as players can remember what side of the pagoda is meant to be facing them, it's inconvenient and finicky. The card-synergy, or more accurately score-synergy is a pretty clever rule, providing players a reason to work towards completing panoramas. The 4 scoring tracks seem a little unnecessary but in practice they work fine. This brings me to the knock-back mechanic. It feels a little harsh that, if a player gets their scoring marker knocked off the board, it can't come back into scoring. On the other hand if a player has reached maximum on a track and other players are lingering at the bottom, it's probably not a priority for those other players, so not that much of a loss. So yes, it feels a bit harsh but it's not game breaking. All of this means players will look to optimise the order in which they play cards to optimise how they increase their scores. Concentrating on increasing scores in 1 or 2 tracks can potentially knock-back other players. Conversely, working towards completing panoramas can earn bonuses which may prove useful elsewhere; sometimes you'll be able to do both but sometimes not and looking for opportunities to exploit these times is vital. The also makes use of a variation of the hand-as-currency mechanic, except here it's used to trigger actions and not to actually pay for something. Despite this difference, it places that same conundrum on players; which is how to choose which card to discard? Obviously, they'll be times when it has to be a card with the action they need but otherwise, it's another meaningful decision to make. In conclusion; Four Gardens is a fairly easy to learn set-collecting game that provides players with enough decisions to be engaging, fun and provides unusual resource gathering and scoring mechanics which makes it feel unique. I enjoyed it and think it's worth a try. 17th February 2022 It's a Thursday night and we're round Simon's for some gaming goodness. The game of the night was Star Wars: Outer Rim. Turns out that playing a scoundrel in an open world Star Wars game ain't like dusting crops. What's in a game?
Regardless of whether it's practical or not, the semi-circular board looks like eye-catching. From an art perspective, it's clear that they've used some photo-referencing from the films for some of the illustrations and I think that's fine, it still looks like good artwork and means the game wisely eschews using actual photos anywhere. The quality of the art is good. Star Wars: Outer Rim uses quite a lot of iconography, for stats, for factions, on the dice etc. Fortunately, much of it is pretty clear and self-explanatory, it requires little referencing to the rulebook. This is helped by the use of tags which is easily understood. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Star Wars: Outer Rim players take on the role of outlaws, bounty hunters and scoundrels, the general scum and villainy of the galaxy I guess and the objective in Star Wars: Outer Rim is to acquire fame. There are varied paths to achieve this. collecting on bounties, delivering goods and other tasks or jobs that will occur during the game. In their turn, the active player will perform actions in 3 phases before play moves on clockwise. These phases are Planning, Actions and Encounter.
Endgame Play continues until the any player reaches 10 fame, the game then immediately ends and they are considered the winner. Overall
I haven't covered the entirety of the rules here but even so, from the perspective of complexity, Star Wars: Outer Rim isn't too bad or that complicated. You move a few spaces, perform actions, have an encounter and that's it. There are a number of situational exceptions (Mostly coming from cards that are drawn.) that need remembering though, players will want to pay close attention to their playing area to know what they'll be good at, paying attention to their tags in particular. The game also possesses some RPG aspiration here and makes use of very light RPG system, there's no XP as such but characters and ships can be levelled up after completing their goals. Having said that, the rules will probably be a little too convulsed for non-gamer types. I don't think that this is a game for Star Wars fans wanting a board game to play. It feels more like a board gamers who want a Star Wars game to play, which is not a thing necessarily bad and honestly, there's going to be a bit of crossover between the 2 groups. Because of the fairly open nature of the game, it's quite hard to describe what players will expect and strategies they might employ. Players will likely acquire jobs, encounters, bounties etc randomly to some extent, this will require them to adapt their strategies. Optimisation, picking up and completing jobs while working towards other jobs is vital here, as this finding the most efficient route across the map, The board's unusual shape essentially funnels travel along 2 or 3 routes. All of this is provided of course, that all the pieces fall in the right place. This would include watching how patrols move and the reputation players have with their respective factions. There are also other paths to accruing fame points such as fighting patrols. Players will also look to gain crew, improved ship and mods. Additionally, there's nothing to stop players fighting other players, in fact, the game may sort of encourage this as circumstances ay put one player's bounty aboard another player's ship. I'm not sure how I feel about Star Wars: Outer Rim. One aspect that irks me is the entirely different set of mechanics used for skill tests and combat. Another is the shape of the board. For an open world game players are in essence limited to the choice of going one way or the other, clockwise or anticlockwise. Yes. the board looks good and perhaps it makes sense within the context of the Star Wars setting but ,t feels like it's been done to nudge players to undertake tasks in a certain order, all in the name of game balancing or game play. I also found the game a little unengaging. I think this was down to a mixture of what felt like a long downtime between turns and frequently slightly unexciting turns. And as with a lot of open world games that sort try to implement a go-anywhere-do-anything theme. It feels like a bit more of an effort than it's worth. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to get a player to gamemaster an actual table top RPG instead. 9th February 2022 It's Wednesday night and we're round Simon's for some gaming fun. The evening's game was In the hall of the Mountain King. Ask yourself: What is it that trolls like to do? Live under bridges perhaps; no. Chase goats maybe; no. What about make trouble on the internet; no. What trolls really like to do is dig tunnels (The fancier the better.) and move statues! What's in a game?
There's certainly a good amount of wooden tokens and meeples here, the acrylic crystals are also a nice addition. None of the other components struck me as being poor quality and they're typical of what is expected in a modern game. There are a couple of minor quibbles though. The pedestal points tokens are a bit small and fiddly to handle The second is a bit of personal grumble - which is that all the carts are brown but depending on where the carts are acquired from will represent different colours. Carts in a player's central area can be used for any colour of statue. But carts from icons on troll cards can only be used to move statutes of a certain colour - which is indicated by the colour of the icon used to acquire the cart! Makes sense... right? Maybe not? Surely it would have been useful to include some carts of the relevant colours? There isn't a great deal of art in the game, mostly on on the spell and troll cards but it's all well illustrated with bold colours and and is fairly varied. There are 4 types (Or clans.) of troll cards and 3 types correspond to the blue/orange/white colour motif that runs through the game and I quite like how those trolls cards have a colour pallet to match it their types. Having said that; the starter cards all feature the same piece of artwork that has been coloured matched to each player colour which is a little disappointing. For the most, the game's iconography is actually straightforward and easily understood. Only the aforementioned issue with carts being a small problem. If the cart icon has a coloured background then a cart that is sourced from that icon can only be used for that colour of statue. Luckily it's not a gamebreaker although it's finicky rule to remember. How's it play? Setup
On to play Play during In the Hall of the Mountain King will have active player performing 4 actions before play moves clockwise to the next player.
Endgame The endgame is triggered when there no coronation tokens left to acquire. The current round is completed and 2 more rounds are played. Players then calculate VPs, a player's VPs may come from the following sources. Score tracker. Statues - depending on their position in the 5 zones and doubled if the player managed to place them on a pedestal. Great hall tokens in a player's network - with or without statues. Pedestal points for placing pedestals. Coronation tokens. Unspent resources; these can earn points. Every 3-of-a-kind scores an extra VP. Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Despite having quite a few rule to remember and sounding quite complicated, In the Hall of the Mountain King is actually pretty straightforward in practice and many of the rules are obvious when in action. There's definitely a couple of finicky rules though, and again - it's to do with the carts and pedestals. It feels like an unnecessary complication to have these differently coloured carts to move statues. The rule that restrict pedestals to 1 per colour in each zone also feels a but cumbersome. I know why the rule is there: It encourages competition in a game that otherwise has little interaction between players. Players will want to be the first to get a pedestal as close to the Heart of the Mountain as possible. It locks out completing players and offers a big scoring opportunity. It means that players are put into a balancing act of needing build their tunnel network but also acquire resources to make this expansion happen. Clever placement of tiles will earn players some resources but recruiting trolls is the best way to get them and you'll note that digging and recruiting are pretty much the only 2 mutually exclusive actions in a turn. There's more to tunnel tile placement too, pedestals and thus statues have to go on anchor spots and it's these need to be as close to the centre of the board as possible, sometimes it'll be tricky to get it right, or it'll require not getting something else. Being able to avoid rubble spaces helps as well. Resource management also has more to it. Spending resources from troll cards first is prudent, as is using workshops to change them into other resources - because they go back on to the storage space and not the troll card. It does involve trying to think ahead about what resources can be acquired and what will be needed. This brings me neatly to the Trollmoot/Horde elements of the game, with their overlapping and cascading mechanics for both buying cards and acquiring resources they almost feel like a different game to the tile placement taking place on the game board. I have to say that I like the cascading mechanic, it's simple but provides some interesting decisions for players to make. Building up a Trollmoot, like much of In the Hall of the Mountain King requires a little forethought. If my calculations are correct, the cards in the centre columns will be activated the most. Players will want to identify and prioritise what resources they'll need in their Trollmoot setup. Additionally, deciding where to place a troll card will determine what resources the player immediately. I do also have some concerns about the game, I found using the tunnel tiles, creating pedestals and moving statues more of a chore than satisfying and the game it didn't quite gel with me. I'm also not sure how much value there is in replaying the game. The player and statue starting positions and workshops may vary but mostly the board's resources stay unchanged. And while the card mechanics are good, the cards themselves only vary in which resources they provide. In the Hall of the Mountain King is another one of these games that does nothing really wrong and I've got nothing against the game. If someone else wanted to play it I would happily join in but somehow it's missing that special something that makes me want to play it again. 3rd February 2022 It's a Thursday and we're round Simon's for a night of gaming. The first game of the evening was My Little Scythe. My Little Pony What does does My Little Scythe have to do My Little Pony? Well... err... nothing... obviously... My Little Scythe is a reskinned iteration of Scythe that has been simplified and pared down to make it more accessible to younger players. I have played Scythe but it was some time ago, long before I started this blog in fact. What's in a game?
It's obviously that the game's art direction is meant to emulate the style of a Saturday morning kid's cartoon. It makes use of bright colours and features well illustrated cartoon styled art throughout. The game's iconography is clear, all of the symbols are easily understood. What's in a game? Setup
On to play My Little Scythe is all about victory conditions and the first player to achieve 4 of them will win. The turn structure in My Little Scythe is very traditional, with the active player having their turn and active play moving to the person on the left.
Endgame Play continues until a player has earned all 4 of their trophies which triggers the endgame. Each player who has not earned their 4 trophies now has a further single turn to do so. Additionally, the 1 trophy per turn restriction does not apply during the endgame. In the case of a tie (Which can be likely considering the small scoring range.), whoever has the highest friendship score wins, if the tie still isn't broken, whoever controls the most resources wins and if that's equal, victory is shared. Overall
My Little Scythe has done a good job of paring down the rules of Scythe without really diluting its game experience. Players of Scythe will find a lot here that is familiar. Like Scythe, My Little Scythe is a blend of doing your own thing and competing with other players. This is due to how the trophy mechanics work; players are attempting to complete any 4 objectives out of 8 which generates a lot of routes towards victory. Different players will naturally approach how they can go about winning individualistically. It means that player behaviour can generally be quite varied, players may simply ignore each other, compete for resources or even engage in outright conflict, or any amount of combination of those. However, I feel that acquiring apples and gems is perhaps the most important goal in the game maybe overimportant, they provide the most ways to earning most trophies, competition for them can be stiff, especially with higher player counts. Players in My Little Scythe will want to optimise there strategy dependant on a number of factors, including personality card and resource locations, they can also to pay attention to what other players, trying to predict what they're doing, react accordingly and may have to change their strategy. With it's colourful, cartoony presentation and relatively stripped down rules, it's obvious that My Little Scythe is at least in part aimed at younger players - that's not to say that it can't be enjoyed by adults or doesn't have some crossover appeal. Having said that, I don't think the rules are that simplified, I'd say they're still fairly intricate and could prove an obstacle to younger players, particularly if there isn't an older player present who's familiar with the rules. I'd say My Little Scythe is family-friendly more than kid-friendly. I think it's a fairly good family-friendly game as well and a good introduction for kids or 'non-gamers'. For me though; I'm not sure how I feel about My Little Scythe. It doesn't feel like my kin of game. There's nothing wrong with the game mechanically, nor do I think it's overly simplistic and I'm fine with the theme. I can see how other people enjoy it but I was just unenthused by it and found it unchallenging. To me, It felt like there was synergy lacking between actions I'd have no problem playing it again if others wanted to, but it's not one I'd choose to play. 28th January 2022 It's Friday evening and we're round Simon's for a night of gaming. The game of the night was Apollo. Houston.... we've had a game here. One small step for gaming and errr, umm... one cooperative game for gamers? Anyway, enough of the bad jokes. What's in a game? Apollo is an symmetrical cooperative game where 1 player take on the role of mission control and the other players take on the role of astronauts on the titular mission.
The boards, tokens and player screen are all constructed of suitability thick card. While the dice are not wooden, they use a old school LCD numeric font for the numbers which is pretty cool, as are the pouches to store the mission cards. The astronaut board and particularly the player screen feature very well themed artwork that calls back to sixties computer tech. The art on the astronaut board displays various dials and buttons is perhaps a little sparse but is also clean and doesn't interfere with the game element. Most of the player screen is decorated with evocative artwork of of what I imagine is module controls, the inside has some game information but the rest is an illustration of what mission control might look like. Dig the cup of coffee! The art that depicts the Earth and the Moon is perfectly fine, they look like what they're meant to. Finally, the flight stage cards are double-sided and as each one is completed, it's flipped over to show an illustration of that actual stage, which is a nice touch. The game features little in the way of dedicated iconography, all the information is presented clear terms and is easy to comprehend. How's it play? Setup Since Apollo is a asymmetrical game, it has a asymmetrical setup.
On to play Apollo is played over a number of rounds, each round has its setup and then is played over a number of turns. To make matters worse, Apollo is played in real time and each round only lasts 4 minutes.
What are these actions and how do they work?
Endgame During play, if the module passes a flight stage space on the board without completing its requisite task or the flight control rating is lower then 4, then the mission immediately fails. If the module reaches splashdown without completing the required number of experiments, then the mission fails. However, if all the flight stages and experiments are completed, then mission is a success and the players win the game. Overall
The rules for Apollo sound quite clunky in writing but in actual play, they felt straightforward and once players begin performing actions, it becomes quite understandable. I wouldn't call it a crossover game but I imagine that it would be easy to pick up. Apollo is quite unusual, being an asymmetrical cooperative game and I think it fits its theme quite well too. Having that slight disconnect between mission control and the astronauts somehow lends the game a greater sense of teamwork. Astronauts having to rely on mission control to get information and mission control having to rely on the astronauts to get comms tokens and to be able to make changes to systems means players have to work together. It's definitely a bit different to the typical cooperative game where players are cooperating but generally sort of off doing their own thing. Another noticeable and welcome difference is how there's no characters running round a global board trying to stop the spread of something here. During the game, players will be, broadly speaking, faced with 3 types of obstacle; successfully completing flight stages, successfully completing experiments and firefighting damage that occurs during the flight. There's a real need to strike a balance between these 3 priorities and players will also have to approach this as efficiently as possible, the flight module moves along the board after every turn and is in essence another countdown timer. It means planning for the known variables of the flight stages, somewhat knowable experiments and also reacting and adapting to unpredictable damage inflicted on the command module and there will be damage! There are 15 damage spaces on the flight damage board and only 10 dice to cover them, that means at least 5 damage to the systems every round. Being a cooperative game, Apollo uses the luck or specifically the bad luck that arises from rolling those dice to challenge players. The game also features a time limit in the form of a 4 minute timer: On paper this might not seem like much time but in play it's perhaps a little overgenerous. 4 minutes to assign 10 dice works out to be 240 seconds for 10 dice or 24 seconds per die, which we did not find much of an issue. We played the Gemini mission board a couple of times and it didn't present too much challenge for us, there were a definite couple hiccups and dicey (sic) moments but otherwise it was pretty much plain sailing or more accurately, plain err.... orbiting? Mission control never had to reach for the puzzle boards. However, we are a fairly experienced band of players and maybe for once, the luck went our way this time. We didn't get round to playing the Apollo mission board which is probably where the meat of the game lies and certainly looks more challenging, so I'm reserving judgement on the game's difficulty. I'm not certain about the game's replay-ability either, it wasn't boring but at the same time felt a little samey, players are ultimately just assigning dice to tasks, some of which may become quite familiar over multiple plays. Easy to learn with a reasonable play time and providing some interesting decisions to make, I'd say that Apollo is a good game to play every once in awhile and if cooperative games are your cup of tea, then it's definitely worth checking out this fresh take on cooperative gameplay. |
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