19th February 2023 It's Sunday evening again and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness. Paint the Roses, it sounds a strange thing but that's what you do when in the kingdom of The Queen of Hearts in this 'Alice in Wonderland' themed cooperative game of deductive reasoning. Caveat: We have only ever played this game digitally. What's in a game?
Paint the Roses' artwork is pretty high quality, Art on whim cards and tiles look good and is easily understood but the standout art is on the game board. It's vibrant, colourful and eye catching, everything I think is good in game artwork. Only 4 colours and 4 shapes are used in Paint the Roses, these are straightforward to comprehend and there's no other iconography. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Paint the Roses, the players are trying to collectively fill all 16 empty spaces on the game board while staying ahead of The Queen of Hearts model. How is this done? By playing tiles, placing clues on them and using those clues to try and guess what is displayed on other player's whim cards. Players must keep their whim cards hidden from other players, only revealing them when they are correctly guessed. Paint the Roses uses a traditional turn structure with the active player completing their actions before play progresses to the player on their left. During the active player's turn, the following phases occur.
Endgame If the players manage to place shrub tiles in all 16 spaces and survive to the end of the round - that is; survive The Queen's final movement, the players collectively win the game! If any time The Queen reaches the same space as The Gardeners or overtakes them; it's off with their heads. The players collectively lose the game. Once a game is concluded, players can record their score, i.e., where they finished on the scoring track. Overall
Thematically I found Paint the Roses a little abstract. Having The Queen actually chase the player model around the out of the board was a bit silly (Which thinking about matches the absurdness of the source material.) but also reasonably clever. While I understand how the theme meshes with the mechanics, it all felt a little... detached. Mechanically though, Paint the Roses presents players with very tricky decisions and this is twofold. Firstly, the active player must decide which of 4 shrub tiles to draft and how they can place it on the board to convey the information on their card. I think that there's also a higher level of play here where the active player can choose to play a tile to potentially help another player to convey information. Secondly, once a tile has been put down, the players must make a guess. It's likely that this will involve a mix of deduction and also blind guessing. Easy whim cards are well... fairly easy to guess which is why players are limited to one easy card at a time, other cards are no so easy. Its important to successfully guess harder cards because it puts more space between the players and The Queen There's also the element of trying to guess another card after a successful guess but it's genuinely higher stakes: A successful 2nd guess will give the players more breathing room but a wrong guess means that essentially any progress made from a guess has been lost. Double or nothing really. These mechanics for guessing feel quite unique but also a little obtuse and harder to comprehend than they should be. I don't think it helped that we were playing the game digitally and clue tokens were added automatically which sort of distanced us from thinking about what was going on. I also felt being forced to guess every turn was quite harsh and The Queen advanced very quickly after relatively few failures. I feel that if players make a couple of wrong guesses in the early game, they'll be on the back foot for the rest of it - however long that lasts. This brings me to the rule with the White Rabbit that increases The Queen's speed is quite interesting - although I'm not sure how I feel about it. If The Queen has a high speed, an incorrect guess can move her a lot of spaces. It increases the stakes as the game progresses, meaning the players can never afford to be complacent. The drawback is that it felt frustrating and counterintuitive, like we were being punished for being successful. Between the difficulty and somewhat frustrating way the deduction worked, I found that I did not enjoy Paint the Roses, which is a shame, I like the idea of a cooperative, logic driven game. I would definitely be open to trying the game physically as I might chance my stance when actually handling the game but digitally speaking, this is not a game for me.
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17th February 2023 It's a Friday and we're at Woking for a night of gaming fun. Adrenaline, a fast paced head-to-head game inspired by first person shooters. What's in a game?
Adrenaline uses plastic damage tokens, card ammo tiles, transparent acrylic ammo cubes and skulls; it's an usual mix of materials but it works just fine. The components are all good quality, the cards are fine as are the tiles and tokens. The plastic components all feel solid. It's immediately apparent that Adrenaline makes good use of colour. This is particularly true of the game board, where bright colours are used to distinguish between different rooms - this is important for 'line of sight'. The component also look bright and colourful as well as easy distinguish. The game's art is fairly good if a little underused - illustrations on weapon cards are a little small. Other than that I think the artwork is mostly reserved for character portraits. There is quite a lot of iconography in Adrenaline, mostly on weapon and powerup cards, the game comes with a separate booklet to explain how they work - which is a little telling. Some of the iconography is intuitive and easy to comprehend, some of it not so much. Luckily, it's not a gamebreaker and not much of an issue to learn but I do feel it will slow down the game somewhat unless at least 1 person has previously played. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Adrenaline, players are trying to earn as many VPs as possible. This is done by killing and more importantly, damaging their opponents. During their turn, the active player can perform 2 actions, they can be different or the same action twice. The actions available are determined by what actions are on their action table and which actions have been unlocked on the players adrenaline track. Broadly speaking, there are 3 types of actions, several actions actually combine different actions
Endgame Once the final skull has been taken from the board, it triggers the endgame. Depending on the game mode chosen, they are 2 ways the game can end. Sudden Death The game immediately ends and goes to scoring. Final Frenzy In this game mode, each player gets one more turn. All players use flip their player board and action tile to the other sides, using those moves and scoring opportunities for the final round. Regardless of how the game end is resolved, the game then goes to scoring. Players earn points from the following sources.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
I'm always a bit suspicious when a tabletop game tries to replicate a twitch based computer game or uses it for inspiration, thematically or otherwise. Fortunately, Adrenaline does a pretty good job of abstracting this for a board game. You run, you gun and you pick up, that's about it! Line of sight and range rules are kept very simple and consequently very quick. Attacking is also quick; play a card - that's the damage it does, some extra resources can be spent to tweak it but that's about it. Some of the situational rules regarding specific weapons are definitely a bit fiddly and may well require referring to the rules, as mentioned earlier it's not to much of an issue though. Rules for scoring kills are also a bit peculiar but the payoff is that you get a balanced scoring system that rewards attacking multiple opponents and encourages the free-for-all nature of a deathmatch. As they rulebook states, there's diminishing returns in constantly attacking one opponent, since because skulls placed on killed players' boards cover the higher scores, meaning less VPs are earned off them from then on. It's also worth noting that the damage mechanic is essentially an area control mechanic and that the areas being controlled are other players' damage tracks! Rules for picking up and reloading are also straightforward and adds an extra layer of decision making to consider. Should a player burn through ammo to press the attack/do more damage or try conserve or gain more ammo. It creates these moments where attacks are followed by short lulls. I also like the rule that when a weapon is used, it doesn't come back into play until the following turn. it stops powerful weapons being overused and incentivises players to look for synergy between weapon cards. Gameplay wise, Adrenaline is very much a game of reacting to what other players are doing and the landscape will change every turn. Especially as in relative terms, the game board is quite small, players will very much be in each other's faces a lot of the time. Players will look for opportunities to exploit, such as hitting multiple enemies at once (Damage diversification is key to earning VPs.) or minimising exposure to attacks to themselves (Although this can be very hard considering how focused the game board is.). It goes without saying that Adrenaline is very much an aggressive game of direct conflict and player interaction. If this isn't your sort of thing, then you probably won't enjoy Adrenaline The game also feels a little like a miniatures wargame game albeit in a very loose way. I think that's why I found it a little unengaging. Fun and clever but not quite what I want out of a game. I can't fault Adrenaline, it does what it sets out to do and if if you're looking for a first-person shooter inspired game with lots of aggressive interactive gameplay then Adrenaline is one to consider. Personally though, if someone wanted to play it, I would do so without hesitation but it wouldn't be a first pick for me. 7th February 2023 Tuesday has come around again, that means it's time for more gaming goodness with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns in Woking. Horrified: American Monsters is the follow up to the excellent Horrified and you can read my blog on it here. Like the original, this is a cooperative adventure in which the heroes (In this instance investigators from the Federal Bureau of Paranormal Investigation) stop the encroachment of monsters from American folklore into a town/city. So how does Horrified: American Monsters game stack up against the original? Components
Monster mats: As with the original game, each of the game's monsters comes with their own mat that manages how to defeat them.
All the components for Horrified: American Monsters are good. The tokens and tiles feel sturdy while cards are of a normal quality. Because the monster mats are fairly large, they feel a little flimsy but unless you go out of your way to abuse them, they should be fine. The game uses card standees for both players and citizen which means there's about 20 of them - which is a lot. They're constructed of thick card and will stand up to being handled. While plastic, the dice with their slightly rounded corners are good quality. As with the original, each of the game's monsters is represented by a plastic figure in their respective colour. The quality is fairly good, which is to say good enough for a board game. The game's artwork is high quality with good portraits for the heroes, citizens and monsters. Artwork on the tokens, cards and monster mats also look good and suitably moody. The game board contains probably the most notable artwork; a eye catching city with recognisable buildings but is importantly, also free of clutter. Wisely, the game has a sort of mid twentieth century theme to the art which gives it a sort of timeless quality. Most of the game's iconography can be found on the bottom of the monster cards and generally, the complexity is equal to that of the original. How's it play? Like the original, Horrified: American Monsters is a cooperative game about squaring up to monsters threatening the game's town/city, There's a few differences from the original, most obviously in the interactions with the monsters the manner in which they are rendered vulnerable and defeated The rules for frenzy work a little differently and the events on the monster cards are tailored for the game and possibly, so are the perk cards. Otherwise, the game is pretty much identical with its predecessor. I'm not going to blog about at length about the rules or game play. For that you can just read my original blog. Overall
Hmm, this is a bit of a tricky one. Horrified: American Monsters is a solidly good game but is it too similar to Horrified? From the perspective of gameplay, Horrified: American Monsters features the same well balanced cooperative action-point driven mechanics from the original which will have players moving across the map in a race against time, collecting resources, saving bystanders and contending with monsters until they complete the tasks that make them vulnerable and then hopefully, finally defeat them. In my option, that gameplay is very good and in short; if you liked Horrified, there's a good chance you'll probably also like Horrified: American Monsters. However, since the 2 games are so similar, it can be hard to justify having both unless you're a fan or the series/genre or a completionist, it's probably easy to justify having both. On a personal level, I prefer the original Horrified. Having to defeat the Universal monster like Dracula or The Invisible Man felt more compelling than having to deal with Bigfoot or The Jersey Devil. I think in part that's due to a little bit of unfamiliarity with those American cryptids. Consequently, I don't associate them with villainy As I do with the Universal monsters. To me for example, Bigfoot feels like a shy recluse, not a threat to be overcome. Of course your mileage may vary, it's not like Horrified: American Monsters is anything other than a very good game so you should go ahead and play it. 3rd February 2023 Friday is here! I'm at the office in Woking for some after work gaming. As the name might suggest, Formula D is a game based on Formula 1 racing - but with dice! It's also the spiritual successor to the fantastic Formula Dé, a game I played 'back in the day'. How does it hold up? Let's see. What's in a game?
All of Formula D's components are good quality. The game board and player tiles feel sturdy, as does the player board. While the cars are quite tiny, they are all well sculpted, colourful and overall look great. I was a bit sceptical of having player boards with pegs and a groove for the gearstick but in practice works well enough and does away the need for pencils and erasers which were needed for the original Formula Dé. Perhaps the only criticism would be for the tokens, which are a bit small and fiddly. However, there's no other way to fit them on the track so it's a bit of a necessary evil. The player tiles feature some nice colourful art with F1 drivers on one side and street racers on the other side. The street racers have definite anime look to them. But the standout artwork appears on the game boards which feature fantastic illustrations of their locales. A lot detail has been put into the art, you can even see crowds of people. All the iconography on the track are numbers and arrows and are easily understood. The colours/shapes of the gears are also easy to understand. However, the icons used on player tiles could be a little clearer, I think more stylised icons would have been more helpful. Finally the positioning of the resource tracks on the player board could have been done differently to improve usability. Specifically, the gearbox, brake and engine tracks could have been put together, since these are spent when skipping gears - more on skipping gears below. How's it play? Setup The setup and rules description here are for the standard version of the game using the F1 setup
On to play Formula D does not use a traditional turn order, instead a player's position on the track determines when they take their turn in the round. Whoever is in the lead goes first and becomes the active player, whoever is 2nd goes second and so on, until the last player has had their turn. Then a new round begins and any changes in position will be carried over to the player turn order. During a player's turn, they must perform the following.
Endgame The first car to cross the start/finish line after completing the prescribed number of laps, wins! Second across the line finishes 2nd and so on. Some additional info Basic rules I'll briefly touch on the beginner rules for Formula D. Fundamentally, the only difference is that players in the basic game only have one catch-all resource track called 'Wear Points' And all tyre, fuel, engine etc usage is taken from this track which starts with 18 WPs. Street race rules: As someone who very much enjoyed Formula Dé in the past, I've not much attention to the 'street racing' aspect that has been introduced in this iteration of the game. It features elements such as narrowing streets, jumps and even people shooting at the cars! Additionally, the characters on the player tiles are very unique and each feature a special move or ability and seems a bit 'video-gamey'. It feels very much like an attempt to jump on the bandwagon of a famous movie franchise and I have little interest in the street racing side of the game, of course, your mileage may vary. Overall
I'll start by mentioning that while not part of the base game, there are 6 map packs for Formula D, each providing 2 additional tracks to the game. generally each pack features a street racing track as well as a real-world inspired circuit. It should also be noted that Formula D is almost identical to earlier iterations of the game, this means the game is fully compatible with all the racetracks from those previous games. This is fantastic, because if like me, you have a bunch of tracks from Formula Dé, it greatly increases the longevity of the game. I'm sure it was deliberate on the part of the producers of Formula D and was a wise move. I've seen Formula D criticised for being too luck based but without that element of luck, there's no risk and risk is at the heart of what makes Formula D so good. You see, as a racing game, Formula D is not really a 'simulation', I mean how could it be? However, one thing it does emulate very well is the feel of having to 'push the envelope', how racers try to take it to the edge, how they take risks and how players in Formula D will also need to take risks, or more precisely, when to take risks Unlike many games, playing too sensibly or prudently is a sure way to finish second in Formula D! This all ties in with what Formula D is all about - which is managing corners, specifically the gear and consequently the speed of a car when it goes through corners. This is not quite as simple as it sounds though: Ideally, players will want to be in as higher gear as possible for optimal movement at all times. However, players will need to be mindful of their resources, overshooting corners by too much or too often (Especially early in a race.) can have ramifications later. Sometimes overshooting will have an advantage, sometimes it won't it'll just be a waste of WPs. This is all contextual of course, depending on a car's position relative to a corner, players will need to adapt their tactics to racing through that corner, even the position of opponent's cars can effect the players behind. Players will also need to be wary of 2 or 3 stop corners and resist the temptation entering the corner in too higher a gear and too fast: In real racing, sometimes going into a corner slower means coming out faster, this can hold true in Formula D too. Another time a player may take a big is when an opponent is ahead in a corner. E.g., if that opponent ahead exits the corner in 3rd gear to avoid overshooting, the player behind may want to risk taking going up a gear and exiting in 4th. It's a real advantage to exit corners in a gear higher than your rivals. If you look at the distribution of numbers on the dice, the maximum speed on a gear die is generally the lowest speed on the next highest die. In terms of negatives, player elimination is a thing here (I'm not a fan of player elimination.) and players can crash out and be sat twiddling their thumbs. Although this sort of thing generally only might occur when approaching the end of a race and back markers push hard to try and get on the podium. Playing time can also potentially be an issue. Races can last 1-3 laps and you can expect a race to on average last 1 hour per lap. If you decide to play a full race, don't be surprised to lose an entire afternoon or morning to the race. Which is not necessarily a bad if that's what you want. Also, with it's small components and 6 resources, Formula D can be a little fiddly. Quibbles aside, Formula D is a fun, game and it's satisfying when you manage pull if risky manoeuvres and manage to fly from corner to corner. There's also a genuine, palpable surge of pleasure when you go into 6th gear, roll that 30-sided die and blasting down that straight. Formula D is mid-weight game that fits it theme well and presents players with conundrum of when and how much risk to take. Who would have thought roll-and-move mechanics could be so well implemented. Formula D is a game I have played a lot in its various iterations and I've always enjoyed it. If you want a racing game with a strong thread of push-you-luck running through it, then this is one to try. 28th January 2023 Wogglecon 6, a day of gaming at the Bisley Scout Hall continues and the next game of the day is Skulk Hollow. I didn't know that it turns out that little anthropomorphic fox dudes and giant stone creatures seem to really hate each: Which is what Skulk Hollow is all about in this asymmetrical strategy game! What's in a game? Skulk Hollow is a 2-player game where one player takes on the role of a 'Foxen' hero who leads a band of Foxen warriors against a lone guardian who is a literal colossal stony force of nature. Each player has their own unique decks, components and gameplay.
The tokens and meeples all feel solid and look great. Obviously the massive guardian meeple is the notable standout component, yes, perhaps you could call it a gimmick but it fits thematically. The use of card boxes is a nice touch of presentation. The art is equally high quality. Skulk Hollow uses a coloured line illustration somewhat cartoonish style that's colourful, bright, detailed and suits the games slight whimsical (At least as whimsical as 2 factions battling each other can get!) nature. I've found that anthropomorphic art can be divisive as a style but I think the anthropomorphic character art on card looks pretty good regardless of what your stance is. The game board also looks great and I like how compact it is. With regards to iconography, Skulk Hollow uses fair amount but it all seems pretty self-explanatory. Icons for movement are easily understood, as are the icons for actions such melee, leap, etc. I don't imagine players having any problem understanding the game. How's it play? Setup
On to play Being a 2-player game, Skulk Hollow uses a very traditional turn order with one player completing their turn before play moves over to their opponent and continues alternating between them for the entirety of the game. Additionally, the Foxen hero player always starts. During their turn, the player will have a number of actions points (AP) available to them which is determined by which Foxen hero/guardian they chose, although typically this is 2-3 APs.
Endgame There are 3 ways the game end can be triggered.
Overall
Skulk Hollow has asymmetrical and card driven gameplay which presents players with some challenging, meaningful choices and options. Players will instinctively want to play cards with maximum efficiency to inflict maximum damage but sometimes because of their hand of cards, players won't be guaranteed having the card to make the move they they need and they'll be forced to adapt. This can be a little frustrating but also makes hand management quite important, sure a player can use a strong card now but sometimes it's worth keeping hold of it for perhaps a more effective use in a later round. It should be mentioned that some of the guardians have smaller hand sizes, meaning they are trickier to play. Of course, players will also want to watch their opponents, paying attention to which cards they play and when. - There's a bit of higher level play here about tracking opponent's actions, essentially a bit of card counting. Otherwise it's quite tricky to describe gameplay; with 4 Foxen leaders and 4 guardians, the various combinations will at least to some extent dictate player tactics - as will the actions of opponents. Skulk Hollow feels like it's about playing the player as much as playing the game. Finally; Skulk Hollow is a 2-player game and I'm always a bit wary of 2-player games as they can revert to a traditional 1-on-1 directly confrontational game, this is definitely the case with Skulk Hollow. While the game is not particularly chess-like, with moving pieces about a board to eliminate your opponent, it does provide something of a chess-like experience and to be honest, it's a playstyle that I'm not personally overly enamoured with. Your mileage will of course vary. Having said all of that; I like to think that I can recognise a well crafted game when I play one and that's what I think this is. Thematically, Skulk Hollow is quite strong. The 'numerous weaker units vs a single giant enemy' gameplay draws inspiration from some classic older games. While, with its climbing on to, running around and stabbing bits of a colossal monster, it's undeniable that Skulk Hollow also takes some thematic inspiration from a certain videogame and it makes for a entertaining concept to add to a board game. It adds up to an interesting game, both visually and mechanically. it is a mid-weight, asymmetrical game that features a lot of player interaction and conflict with moderate tactics and touch of luck. The various combinations of the 2 battling factions also provides a fair bit of replayability. If you want a 2-player game with those elements, Skulk Hollow is worth a look. 19th November 2022 It's a Saturday morning and we're at Bisley for Wogglecon 5 'It's a alive!' - a day of gaming goodness and a bit of charity. Have you ever fancied travelling South American highlands with nothing but a cart of goods to keep you company, going from place to place, hunting for fish, chopping down trees, trading and so forth. If the answer is yes, then maybe Altiplano is the game for you. What's in a game? Altiplano has a whole shedload of components, so here we go!
Right, I think that's it for components. Altiplano's components are for the most part solidly made, the tokens, boards and tiles are constructed of thick card and feel sturdy. The containers made of equally sturdy material but are supplied as flat components that need to need folded into their shape. They sort of clip together but some of them had a tendency to break open. It's not a problem really and nothing that a dab of PVA glue wouldn't solve but even so, it feels a little like a cheap oversight. Cards are pretty average but also smaller than typical cards which allows them to fit on the tiles. Finally, the meeples and cubes all feel like nice wooden components. Altiplano is a game with a South American theme and consequently has a South American folk art themed art style to it. There's a lot of bright solid colours with stylised line art that mixes with slightly cartoony illustrations to be found on the tokens, cards, board and tiles. It's all solid artwork, brash and colourful which is how I like it. The only criticism I have is for the colour schemes for the cloth and wool tokens, which in less than good light can look similar. Between all the location actions, tokens, extension tile actions and so on, there's quite a lot of iconography to Altiplano. Luckily, much of it is intuitive and easily comprehended but some of it will - particularly the extension tiles - will require referring to the rulebook, fortunately it contains fairly extensive explanations. It's not a gamebreaker but there's definitely a bit of a learning curve here. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Altiplano players will be making plans to travel around the location tiles and use their goods to carry out the actions specific to those locations. This is done over 4 phases:
Endgame Play continues until one of the following 2 criteria are met. Any one location becomes fully emptied of all tokens, cards, etc. Or, a space along the extension strip cannot be filled, i.e., the extension tiles supply has emptied. In either instance, the current round is completed and 1 further round is played, then the game goes to scoring. VPs will come from a variety of sources.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
As you can see from the write up so far, there's quite a lot going on in Altiplano and a lot for players to think about. There's a recognisable quandary going on with the bag building mechanic. Players will naturally be looking to acquire tokens to carry out actions but invariably there will be times they end up getting pulled from the bag when they're not needed and unneeded tokens can 'water down' a player's strategies. Unwanted tokens can of course be left on planning spaces but most players will find that irritatingly suboptimal. Alternatively, they can placed on spaces for action that a player does not immediately want to perform but they will eventually end up coming back to again though. Another option albeit fairly situational, is to put them on to order cards, although removes the goods from the remainder of the game. Finally, they can be put into the warehouse, this means those tokens have greater scoring opportunities but again, permanently removes them from a player's container/bag which may or may not be a good thing. layers will have judge the merits of storing tokens contextually - except when dealing with glass tokens. The thing with glass tokens is that they don't produce any other type of token, all they do is produce the most VPs per token, storing them in the warehouse where they contribute to more VPs and declutter a player's bag is a no-brainer and usually I consider no-brainers a bad thing for a board game but I feel this is a deliberate decision on the part of the game - more on that below. If you've been paying attention (And I'm sure you have!) you will also have noticed that several goods such as a cacao, alpacas and even something that seems that it should be common such as fish cannot be produced from the action board. So how are these acquired? There's a couple of opportunities to get them, namely boat cards, extension tiles and possibly role tiles. However, this brings me to a bit of a bugbear I have with this scarcity mechanic. It means there can be a race by experienced players to get those hard-to-produce goods, particularly cacao which produces glass which can be worth so many VPs. In fact I feel the whole of the forest location is especially strong location since cacao alone is used there for 3 separate actions in the same location. A player who can produce cacao and concentrates on doing so can soon be producing lots of goods at the forest. Having said that, the game is a bit of a point salad with various avenues to scoring VPs, it's just that I feel going for glass is the strongest way and experienced players will end competing in that tactic. While the bulk of the game's activity takes place during the action phase, the planning phase is where players will do most of their well... planning. They'll look to optimise there actions to get the most out of their available tokens. Because players will generally need to move around to perform multiple actions, efficient use of the movement track is important, especially so in the early game when food tokens will be scarcer. A player can move their meeple before or after an action may make it seem unimportant but sometimes players will need to think ahead about where they need to be at the start of the next round. As well as having to think about movement and balancing their goods with their bags, players will also have to think about gaining extensions, house and order cards, as well as boat cards if they are needed. Add to this increasing their planning spaces and acquiring corn to fill out their warehouse and players have lot of ways to approach the game In this regard Altiplano does that thing which presents players with lots of options but frequently not enough opportunity to do everything they want, forcing them to make tricky decisions, which I consider a good thing in games. Altiplano is a mid-to-heavy game with a longish playtime, it's probably not for beginners and perhaps could be criticised for being a bit over-elaborate although personally I didn't find it that much of a problem In conclusion; the mechanics blend together to give players choices and essentially problems to solve in optimising their actions. If bag-building style games and resource management are your thing, Altiplano is worth a try. 9th October 2022 Another Sunday, another session of gaming goodness on Board Game Arena. Travel around North America, fulfil tickets, draft cards, create routes in Ticket to Ride. Caveat: We've only played Ticket to Ride digitally. What's in a game?
I suppose that you could call the art on the board muted but I would say it's functional and unobtrusive. The board is quite busy as it is with all the routes crossing back and forth, overly elaborate art would just obfuscate important information, so it feels like a good decision to me. Each colour of train card has it's own unique illustration which helps with accessibility issues. The illustrations are perfectly good if a little plain. The destination cards essentially replicate the art on the board. There's no notable iconography in Ticket to Ride and the game is straightforward to comprehend. There's just the 9 types of train car to remember and that's easy and intuitive. I imagine the biggest hurdle to overcome in the game's presentation is finding destinations on the map and the iconography does a lot to make that as easy as it can. How's it play? Setup
On to play In Ticket to Ride, players broadly speaking have 3 objectives, these are; build as many routes as possible, create a connection between the locations on their destination cards and finally, create the longest contiguous set of connections. All of these will contribute VPs towards their final score. This is done by drafting cards which in turn allows players to create routes. Ticket to Ride uses the typical turn structure of the active player taking their action before play progresses to the player on their left. In their turn, the active player can perform exactly 1 of the 3 following actions.
Endgame When the active player has 2 or less train meeples remaining, the end game is triggered. Every player including the active player has 1 more turn then the game goes to scoring. Players will add points from destination cards to their running total from the game and the player with the longest set of connections gains bonus VPs. Destination cards are now revealed:
Points are tallied, highest score wins. Overall
Ticket to Ride is a very popular, well regarded game and it's easy to see why. Lightweight rules that are genuinely elegant, almost minimalist that're easy to learn, a game that's intuitive to play with a theme anybody can understand. Ticket to Ride is definitely a game with crossover appeal, is a good game for casual play and introduction to board games. It also has a fairly random distribution of destination cards throughout a game which provides a good level of variety to games. This pared down set of rules means that Ticket to Ride also provides players with clear meaningful decisions to make. Basic tactics are pretty straightforward: Players are in a race to connect their personal destinations before they risk getting blocked by other players. They'll need to balance getting cards they need to draft and claiming routes. Since a player's routes do not need to connect, any player essentially can claim any route, anytime if they have the appropriate cards. Completing destination cards can be quite satisfying and they add an extra wrinkle to the gameplay. Being able to acquire more of them during play can be a game changer, earning more VPs but conversely, is also risky, getting a card that is not completed obviously costs VPs. What makes this even more interesting is during the late game this risk/reward mechanic becomes even more pronounced. Acquiring a destination card late in the game can be very risky because the player may not have the required time to complete the connection. However, late in the game is when a player's train network is at it's biggest, consequently it's possible to gain destination cards which have already been connected. There's also a higher level of play in Ticket to Ride. Watching what opponents are doing and successfully anticipating what connections they're trying to make can allow a player to block or slow their progress down by claim routes they might want. If you look at the map, you will see that that there are numerous routes which are only 1 or 2 space grey routes that are very easy for a player to claim, e.g., a 1 space grey route can be claimed with any train rail card. It's obvious this is by design. This brings me to my main contention with Ticket to Ride: It's a game that promotes negative gameplay. What do I mean by that? Claiming a route another player needs will force them to spend additional turns acquiring train car cards and then taking longer to claim routes around the block. In terms of action economy, a player wasting 1 action to make an opponent waste 5 or 6 can be pretty advantageous. Preventing an opponent completing a destination card may earn that player no VPs but for their opponents, it will cost them points. Many Eurogames have mechanics which have sort of a balance to them where if a player screws over an opponent, they will also frequently screw themselves over and only occasionally can they screw an opponent over while advance themselves. Ticket to Ride is not like that! Although, in part this will be down to the type of people playing. Dedicated players will learn and exploit blocking at every opportunity and why not? Games are for winning and getting a score of 1 while opponents get 0 is still winning. More casual players may not care about higher level tactics. Early games will be light and fun but even so, after a while they'll end up realising (Probably by accident!) how powerful blocking can be. Remember, earlier I said how connecting destinations can feel satisfying, well getting blocked can feel equally unsatisfying. There's a lot that's good about Ticket to Ride and I wanted to like it but the negative aspect can just be too frustrating. I understand why the game has a lot of fans, I'm not one of them. 26th September 2022 It's a Monday and we're round Simon's for Firefly: The Game. It 'aint' the time to misbehave, it's actually time to play a Sandbox board game in the world of the cult short lived sci-fi show, Firefly. Now with the requisite joke quote out of the way, it's time to get down to business. What's in a game?
I don't usually talk about this because it has no impact on the game itself but Firefly: The game has a huge footprint, i.e., it takes up a lot of table space. Firefly: The Game has a lot of components and I mean a lot, generally they're are all good quality. Tokens, cards and boards are what you'd expect from a modern. Yes, the Dice are plastic but also with well rounded corners so that's good. I like the paper money too. The models are cool, it's a bit bland that all the player ships are the same firefly class models but otherwise they're good quality, the Alliance cruiser is definitely the standout components. A mixture of photos and illustrations are used throughout the game which is a wise move. Often, games that use a lot of stock photos in place of art look quite cheap. Here though, photos are mostly reserved for portraits of characters from the show so it works well enough in this context. Despite the game's level of detail, the iconography is kept to a minimum and isn't overwhelming. Most game information is relayed through text. Even so, the amount of events, tasks and the like that occur in the game will keep players referring to the rulebook. How's it play? Setup
On to play Firefly: The Game doesn't have set objective, instead it has differing story cards, one of which will be used during a game. Each story card will have a series of goals that must be completed and whoever does them all first, wins! Firefly: The Game follows the usual turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.
Endgame Whichever player completes the final goal on the story card first... wins the game! Endgame
Firefly: The game works hard to replicate the feel of the show and to a certain extent, it does this very well. It successfully captures the feel of hustling round a system, wheeling and dealing, dodging authorities and making profit. All of this though, is only half of what the TV show was, the show was also about the family you make and the stories they collectively create, stuff that's quite hard to replicate in a game and is missing here since players are each playing separate crews. Having said that, there's definitely a bit of emergent gameplay and some elements of storytelling going on here but his brings me to one of my bugbears about the game. When you're playing it feels a bit like a single-player game that happens to have other players in it. There's a little bit of interaction here and there that comes from sending the Alliance or Reavers after other players or trading and crew poaching but it doesn't feel significant. Firefly: The Game is sandbox game that appears to offer a lot of choice, is a lot of game with a lot of rules and rules exceptions and also a lot of components which I feel will be off putting to more casual gamers. A fan of the show who isn't a gamer will probably find Firefly: The Game hard going at the start. Despite the breadth of rules, the game is fairly straightforward in what it asks players to do. One of my other bugbears is that players will often find themselves delivering something, this might be legal or illegal or performing a crime/misbehaving. All of this will involve travelling around and risking running into the Alliance or Reavers or other obstacles and so on. The consequence of this is that because the game is so single-player driven that ultimately, it's a race to complete the goals as efficiently as possible and even though it's meant to be have open sandbox gameplay, players are being somewhat funnelled through the game by those goals. I.e., the game-winning goals are all the same, it's how those goals are achieved that will differ between player. The game also has a fairly long playtime, we played a beginner story card with a low player count and it still took 2 hours. Although, to be fair, that's not really uncommon with this style of play so it comes with the territory but be prepared to commit a few hours to a playthrough. If you're a fan of the Firefly TV show and are prepared to prepared to invest some effort learning the rules time to play, you'll probably enjoy this. Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about Firefly: The Game overall, it was a fun experience and my decisions generally felt meaningful, it also fairly involved and having players run around dong their own thing also felt a little unengaging. However, if someone else wanted to play it, I wouldn't object. 8th September 2022 It's a Thursday evening, it's Aldershot, it's time for some gaming goodness. Channel your inner Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Kevin McCloud as you attempt to build your... Dream Home in this drafting, set collecting game. What's in the game?
Component quality is the usual good standard found in most modern board games. The cards are fine, the board and tokens are constructed from sturdy cardboard. The first player token is chunky and made from wood, it's obviously a bit of a gimmick but it's the kind of gimmick I'm a sucker for! Dream Home has fantastic artwork throughout. The Illustration used on the home board is good, however, the standouts are the cards and tokens which feature excellent colourful and distinct depictions of home spaces. Interestingly, many cards will feature children hidden among the furniture. This is more than just a aesthetic choice which will be explained below. Most information is conveyed via text and there's no iconography that needs learning. How's it play? Setup This is the setup for 4-player games, in game with lower player counts, some cards will be discarded after being placed on the game board.
On to play Dream Home is played over exactly 12 rounds and players will be putting room cards on to their personal game board to build their home and gaining resource cards. This is done by drafting pairs of cards from the same column, that is, 1 resource and 1 room card - except for the leftmost space, in which case they acquire a room card and the first player token. Turn order is slightly different to the usual here: The player with the first player token goes first and play progresses to the left until all players have taken their turn. However, it's possible that the first player token will change hands during a round, consequently, in the following round a new turn order would be established. During their turn, the active player takes the following actions.
Endgame Dream Home is played over 12 rounds and after the last round, the game goes to scoring. There are various avenues to earning VPs.
Points are tallied, highest score wins. In the case of a tie, the player with home board showing the most children on the cards wins! Overall
Dream Home strikes a balance between ease of play and depth. Players will be faced with the conundrum of having to build outwards before building upwards. It might not seem like much but it's unlikely that players will get all the cards they need at the time they need them. The larger room sets will score more points per card but unless a player gets the right cards at the right time, it's likely that they will have to leave gaps when collecting bigger sets, which can make it tricky to build upwards. The drafting mechanic also provides players with a meaningful choice. Again, it's unlikely that players will always get the 2 cards they want, often they will need to compromise on which resource and room card to take as well as adapt to circumstances as they are occur. Finally, the first player mechanic is also interesting. Gaining the first player token feels costly because the player only gets a room card but it can play dividends in the following turn. There will times when going first can be extremely useful. Conversely going last can be painful as the last player will only ever have a choice of 2 columns to pick from. None of this is ever too complicated, the sets are never too big and intricacies that can arise from syncing resource cards such as décor cards with room cards is never too complex. Dream Home also doesn't outstay its welcome. Being played over 12 rounds keeps it moving along briskly and provides a fairly concise experience, unless you're playing with a sufferer of analysis paralysis! It's fair to say that Dream Home is a lightweight and accessible iteration of the 'draft-and-place' multiple components, set collecting mechanic seen in quite a few games. This accessibility along with it's top-notch presentation means that it's probably a good game to play with younger participants or more casual gamers. For me though: While I feel that Dream Home does provide a good experience for younger and more casual gamers, I'm not sure it has long term appeal to more dedicated gamers. I enjoyed the game but it's fairly simplistic nature means I'm not sure how often I'd like to play it. 28th August 2022 It's a Sunday evening and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness. Burgle Bros is a cooperative tile based bank heist/caper game: Can you sneak through the building, dodge the guards, disarm the alarms, find and crack the safes. Time to find out in... Burgle Bros. Caveat: We have only played this digitally. What's in a game?
The art direction for Burgle Bros has some unusual choices. Room tiles have detailed, realistic looking line art illustrations while on the other hand, characters are depicted with highly stylised and exaggerated cartoony art that looks like it's out of the opening titles of a sixties crime caper movie - which is appropriate. It's a weird clash of styles but in this instance it actually works quite well. There are a few icons that are used throughout Burgle Bros but they're all fairly easy to learn, a lot of the game's information is conveyed via text. How's it play? Setup
On to play The objective in Burgle Bros is to find and crack all 3 safes, gain 3 loot cards, then escape to the roof, all without being caught by the security guards. This is done by the use of action points (APs). In Burgle Bros, the active player spends their APs to perform certain actions. Then the security guard on their floor moves along their patrol route. Then play progresses to the player to the left of the active player. A turn is broadly speaking, broken down into 3 phases.
Endgame Play continues until 1 of 2 ending conditions are met. If a player has to discard a stealth token and they cannot because they've already used them up, then the burglar has been caught, players immediately and collectively lose the game. If the players manage to open all 3 safes, get the loot and all of the burglars off the top of floor 3, they collectively win. Overall
First thing to say is that we played Burgle Bros digitally and I felt there was a bit of a disconnect with the game because of this. In the physical copy, all 3 floors are laid out next to each other but the digital copy required visually switching between them. It means the digital copy can never feel as intuitive as the physical one. Anyway, on to the game. Players will need to balance the need to be cautious with the need explore and turn over tiles. Avoiding or neutralising the many alarms is good but so is reaching the objective as quickly as possible. That's because the real challenge in Burgle Bros is managing the movement and behaviour of the guard. This requires thinking ahead and I mean really thinking ahead! There's almost a puzzle-like logic to it but there's also the potential for a lot of randomness too! Players will need to anticipate where the guard will go (And when!) and at times try to manipulate the guard by deliberately triggering an alarm and the like. This is compounded by the fact that the more players there are on a floor; the more a guard may move. E.g., in a 4-player game, a player may think their meeple is 'safe' but if all players' meeples are on the same floor (And they will be in the early game.), the security guard will move at least 8 spaces before that player gets to act again, that's enough to cross an entire floor twice! It can become very hard to predict where the guard is going whenever a new patrol tile is flipped over - which can happen often when the guard moves a lot. I guess the solution to this is for players to get their meeples to other floors ASAP and this will slow down individual guards. From a gameplay perspective though, this feels a little counterintuitive. It turns what is meant to be a cooperative challenge into 3 sub-games with a only tenuous cooperative link between players. From a player perspective, it also feels somewhat counterintuitive. For players, the instinct will be to cooperate; opening a safe can be hard and adding dice to it is vital but also expensive in terms if AP. Multiple players will naturally want to quickly contribute as many dice as possible dice to a single safe to help each other open it sooner rather than later. This is certainly how we played Burgle Bros and in retrospect, that was probably a mistake, it seemed to be that the game punished players for playing this way. Personally I found it the intricacies of having to deal with so many alarms paired with just too unpredictable guard actions a little futile and frustrating to be enjoyable. I suspect that Burgle Bros probably plays best at a 2-player count and could be a good couples game if puzzle type gameplay interests you. |
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