11th December 2022

It's a Sunday evening and where logged into video chat and Board Game Arena for some gaming fun.

More space, more empires and more final frontiers. 
Cosmos: Empires is a galactically-themed tableau building where plays rush to build their cosmic empire - or least increase their empire's production - all very capitalist!

Caveat: We've only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• Cards: Cosmos: Empires uses a single deck of card.
  Each card is illustrated with some sort of space-themed vehicle or construct.
  In the top left corner of each card is the 'purchasing' cost
  Along the bottom it lists the card's 'type', 'activation number' and 'production value'.
  Some cards will also have one of various types of ability, this may well also include some text to better explain how the card works.
• Dice: The game uses 2 4-sided (d4), pyramid looking dice numbered from 1-4.
  There are also a few 8-sided (d8) dice which have no direct gameplay use but are instead used to track certain cards.
• Currency: The game uses 'credits' as its currency.

I have to say I found the illustrations to be pretty good sci-fi themed artwork and could easily see them on classic 70's sci-fi book covers. Having said that, I did also find some of the artwork was a little too busy for a card game, there were bright spots that drew the eye from important information for example and perhaps the text could have been a bit clearer.

While there are a few icons, it's not overwhelming, some information on card abilities are displayed on the cards themselves, sometimes player's will want to refer to the rules for clarification. I would not consider it a problem as Cosmos: Empires is pretty straightforward.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck, then deal 10 face-up into a central drafting area.
• Players: Give 8 credits to each player.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Cosmos: Empires, players will be generating credits which will be used to buy cards from the drafting area.
These cards will have various actions that can be used to the player's benefit with the ultimate aim of increasing currency production.
When a player reaches a certain threshold of currency production, it will trigger the game end.
Cosmos: Empires mostly follows the typical turn structure with the active player performing their actions before play progresses to the player on their left. However, it is likely that 'inactive' players will have their cards activated outside of their turn.
The following occurs during the active player's turn.

• Roll dice: First the active player rolls the 2 4-sided dice and add their values together generating a number from 2-8.
  Note: It should be noted that it's possible for the active player to change the result of the dice roll during their turn. More on this below.
  • Activations: Now all players who have cards with matching activation numbers can activate those cards and produce the listed amount of credits for each activated card's production value.
• Actions: During their turn, the active play can perform any 2 actions from the following. A player may also pick an action to perform twice.
  • Shift result: The active player may use an action increase or decrease the result of the dice roll by 1. This will have the result of changing which cards are activated.
  • Build card: This is another way of saying the active player may buy a card  from the drafting area and add it to their tableau.
  • Cycle a card: The active player may spend an action to discard a card from the drafting area to the bottom of the deck and gain 2 credits.
• Card abilities: If a card has an ability, it can be activated by the active player during their turn without using an action, it's essentially 'free' to use a card ability.
  Furthermore, if the active player 'builds' a card, its ability can be immediately used.
• Next player: Once the active player has completed their 2 actions, play progress to the player on their left.

Endgame
Play continues until any one player has combined production value (Not credits.) on all the cards in their tableau of 30 or more.
At this point the endgame is triggered, the round continues until all players have had even turns.
All player then calculate their finishing combined production value.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Cosmos: Empires is a tableau building game that seems to me to have been designed to be a more streamlined, quicker playing, simpler, more accessible game that's a little different to other games of this type.

The strategy in Cosmos: Empires is relatively straightforward; acquire as many cards as quickly as you can, while some cards do combo off each other and getting those cards is good. It's also a goof idea to just get many cards as you can and hope dice rolls go your way.

You see; typically in tableau building games there's ​an early game element about building up the tableau then a late game element about using that tableau to work towards whatever the winning criteria.
Cosmos: Empires eschews this paradigm because it's winning criteria is about accumulating production value and all cards provide production value. It means that acquiring any cards works towards winning.
​The impact of this is that can create a sort of situation where a player will get some cards that quickly earn them a lot of production/credits which can be used to get even more cards (Especially the case when a player can build 2 cards per turn.) to get more even more production/credits in a self perpetuating cycle.
Now this might sound like a good thing and the kind of you'd want in a tableau builder?

The issue is that it can put one player into a unassailable lead where they not only constantly outproduce other players' production but consequently, they also constantly outpace the production increases of other players. A uncatchable double whammy!
This can be exacerbated by the fact that all cards activate in all players' turns. Quite often activations will end up benefitting whoever is in the lead simply by virtue of them having more cards.
Sure, players can shift the activation numbers but I found in order to not to give the leader benefits, I also had to deny them to myself. It felt very negative.

I genuinely admire any game's attempt to pare back rules, provide more elegant gameplay and quicker playtime and this is the case for Cosmos: Empires but it results in a game that feels somewhat unbalanced.
Additionally, I found Cosmos: Empires a little bland, it didn't feel like there's much variety in the mix of cards and it didn't feel particularly engaging. I'm not sure it would stand up to repeated playing

Although, having said all of that, I might not be the best target audience.
Cosmos: Empires might serve as a good entry the tableau building game type and if you want a straightforward, uncluttered, quick playing iteration of it, Cosmos: Empires might tick those boxes.

22nd November 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

How's it play?
Setup

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is of course more to it than that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13th October 2022

It's a Thursday and we're in Aldershot for a evening of gaming entertainment.

Do you like salads? Do you like points? If so, then maybe you'll like Point Salad, a game about well... about making salads and scoring points with a literal point salad mechanic!

What's in a game?

• Cards: Point Salad uses a deck of 108 cards and that's it. OK, there's a bit more to it.
  Each card is double sided with a veggie side and a scoring side. The veggie side features 1 of 6 vegetables/colours and the other,  the scoring side has scoring criteria related to the veggies.
  Veggie side: The vegetables (Or veggies) types are:
  Cabbage/purple.
  Carrot/orange.
  Lettuce/green.
  Onion/dark red.
  Pepper/yellow.
  Tomato/red (Yes, technically, tomatoes are a fruit but I digress.).
  Scoring side: The flip side of the cards each feature a scoring criteria or manner of point scoring, of which Point Salad has a wide variety.
  The scoring criteria tend to be based on combinations of veggies. For example,  8 victory points (VPs) per 3 onions or 10 VPs for the most tomatoes or 5 VPs for each pair of carrot and lettuce and so on. Some cards will give points for certain veggies and deduct VPs for others, some may score for not having any of a certain type of veggie!
  Finally, in the corner on a scoring card it will display which veggie is on the other side.

Point Salad's cards are pretty basic, they don't seem laminated and feel a little flimsy. Although unless you treat them badly, it shouldn't be a problem.

There isn't much art to Point Salad, only the illustrations for the 6 types of veggie. These are colourful, chunky illustrations with thick line art. I like it and think it suits the game's light, breezy theme.

The game's only iconography is the 6 vegetable types. For the most part, they are clear  and distinct. EXCEPT for the onion and tomato images which not only look a little similar but both use shades of red for their associated colour. It's not a gamebreaker by any means but it definitely can be a little confusing and could have been clearer
The scoring criteria are pretty easy to understand, it uses a mixture of the icons and text to explain their individual rules.

• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
In Point Salad players will be drafting cards from the central selection.
They will be drafting veggies to create sets and drafting scoring cards to score those sets.
Point Salad uses the typical turn structure with the active player acting before play progresses to the player on their left.

During their turn, the active player must perform 1 of the following 2 draft actions, additionally, they may then also perform a free action.

• Draft: The active player must perform 1 of the following 2 draft actions.
  Take 1 scoring card: The active player may take 1 card from the 3 scoring decks and place it in their personal area, keeping it with the scoring side-up.
  Take 2 veggie cards: The active player may take any 2 of the 6 veggie cards and add them to their personal playing area, keeping them veggie side-up and collating them into sets
  The cards that were taken are replaced by flipping and placing cards from their corresponding decks.
• Optional free action: Once per turn, the active player may flip 1 card from the scoring side to its veggie side. Players cannot flip cards from the veggie side to point side!​
• Next player: Once the active player has drafted and possibly performed their free action, player passes to the player on their left.
• Empty deck: At any time, if 1 of the scoring decks becomes empty, simply take the largest of the remaining decks and split it into 2 decks.

Endgame
Play continues until all cards have been drafted and then goes to scoring.

All cards are scored all ways! That means that if for example, a set of carrots can gain VPs from 2 scoring cards, then they are scored twice and so on.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Point Salad is a easy to learn game, there are only 2 actions (And 1 free action.) to choose from and 1 core tenement to remember; scoring cards score off of veggie cards.
The depth comes from what is done with those 2 decisions.

Getting scoring cards early on will give a player an objective to aim for but also can limit their drafting options.
Conversely, concentrating on veggie cards early will give a player some flexibility when it comes to acquiring scoring cards, the risk here though is that optional scoring cards may never become available because other players may get them first or they may get flipped to the veggie side or in game with a lower player count, may not even be in the game.

All of this means that planning ahead can be a two-edged sword. It's definitely worth trying to plan ahead, synergy between scoring cards, i.e., multiple scoring cards that score off 1 type of veggie can led to big scores.
However, the drafting area's landscape is likely significantly change from turn-to-turn and players will also need to adapt to circumstances as they arise. Players will also need to mange having to take cards they don't need or want and look to create or exploit new scoring opportunities as they appear.
The optional free card flip rule offers players a little flexibility. They'll be times that a points card with a negative may prove a liability might be worth flipping which negates the negative and also provides a veggie for another points cards. Again, this is all contextual.

There's also a higher level of play at work here. Players can try and anticipate their opponents are hoping to do and possibly stymy them. Taking specific veggie cards or scoring cards they might want or even taking veggie will cause points cards from the related column to be flipped to replace them

It means that Point Salad generally provides players will meaningful decisions and choices to make.

I find Point Salad an enjoyable game, it makes a great filler, plays up to 6 and also a good crossover or family game.
It's a game that you shouldn't take too seriously, it's a light, fun quick game. In fact it's so quick to play that it seems like the set up time longer than the play time! Which is my only, minor criticism of an otherwise good game.
It this sounds like your kind of thing, you should definitely give Point Salad a try.

25th September 2022

Sunday is here again and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness.

Sea Salt & Paper is a pun that plays on sea salt & pepper in this quirkily ocean and err... origami themed set collecting card game.

Caveat: We've only ever played Sea Salt & Paper digitally.

​What's in a game?

• Cards: Sea Salt & Paper has a deck of 50-odd cards. Each card will have several icons in the top left indicating what they are, what bonus they might provide and what victory points (VPs.) they confer.
  Cards come in quite a few different types and also importantly, in one of about 10 colours.
  • Duo cards: Many of the cards in the game are duo cards, which means they are played as pairs. They have a icon in the corner along with the outline of the icon it pairs with. Most duo sets require 2 matching icons, e.g., a pair of crabs or a pair of boats. One duo pairing however, rather grimly requires a shark and a swimmer!
  • Collector cards: These cards have an icon in the top left corner with a column of numbers below. VPs will be scored accordingly, dependant on the number of that collector card that have been acquired.
  • Multiplier cards: Each multiplier card has a number and a icon. Each card with a matching icon scores that many VPs at the end of a round.
  • Mermaid card: Mermaid cards earn VPs based on the amount of cards of 1 colour a player has the end of a round.
    Additionally: If a player manages to acquire all 4 mermaid cards, they win the game, regardless of VPs, they just win!

Sea Salt & Paper makes use of a genuinely unique art style which looks like the creators constructed origami models themed after the game such as mermaids, crabs or penguins etc and then photographed them. Or perhaps high quality renders have been produced in a computer art program. Either way, the game has what I think a fantastic, eye catching theme, colourful and of course, they get to use the Sea Salt & Paper gag.

The game uses 10 colours for cards - and that's a lot. Fortunately each colour has a unique icon associated with it which a handy and welcome accessibility aid.
The downside is that Sea Salt & Paper has quite a lot of icons, there's about 4 icons for each type of card. Luckily most of them are intuitive or fairly obvious.
I don't think it's too difficult to learn may be off putting during early plays.

How's it play?
Setup

• Deck: ​Take all the cards and shuffle them into a face-down deck.
• Discard piles: Next, the game's 2 discard piles must be created by drawing 2 cards and placing each one into the central playing area face-up in 2 stacks.

That's it for setup.

On to play
Sea Salt & Paper is played over a varying number of rounds until a scoring target has been met. Furthermore, rounds will have a varying length and after a certain point, each round can be ended by any player.
The game follows the usual turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progress to the person on their left.
There are 3 actions a player can perform in their turn.

• Draw card: The active player must draw a card into their hand, there are 2 ways this can be done.
  • Draw from discard pile: The active player may draw a card from either of the 2 discard piles.
  • Blind draw: Alternatively, the active player may draw 2 cards blindly from the deck.
    Then they keep 1 card and place the other on either of the discard piles.
• Play duo: In addition to drawing a card, the active player may also play cards. Cards are always played in pairs (Or duos.). Each type of duo gives the active player a benefit of some sort.
  • Pair of boats: Active player immediately gets another turn.
  • Pair of crabs: Active player takes a card from a discard pile into their hand.
  • Pair of fish: Active player adds a card from the deck into their hand.
  • Shark & Swimmer: The active player takes a card from another player's hand.
• End round: Finally, provided the active player has scored at least 7 points from duos they have played and cards in their hand, they may choose to end the round. There are 2 ways this can be done
  • Stop: The active player declares 'Stop', the round immediately ends and goes to scoring.
    Scoring: there are various sources for scoring points. Unusually, both played cards and un-played cards in hand are scored.
    • Duos: Each pair of duo cards scores 1 VP, regardless of whether it has been played or not! However, cards in hand do not activate their special abilities in any way.
    • Collector cards: These cards will score points VPs depending on the size of their respective collections.
    • Multiplier cards: These will score VPs as per the number of that icon the player has in their possession multiplied by the scoring multiplier.
    • Mermaids: Mermaids score using something called a colour set. A colour set is all of a player's cards of the same colour.
      The active player scores 1 VP per card in their largest colour set. I.e., the player gains 1 VP per card for each card with the colour which they have the most of on their cards.
      Additional mermaids: If a player has a 2nd mermaid, it scores the second largest colour set and so on.
    • Finals scores: Once scores are calculated and tallied as described above, they should be recorded before play progresses to the next round.
  • Last chance: This is the other way the active player may trigger the end of a round. This method adds an extra element to the scoring criteria which is essentially a push-your-luck mechanic where the active player is betting that their score for the round will be higher than all the other players.
    Final round: When the active player declares 'last chance', all other players get one more turn to draw and play cards.
    Scoring: The game then goes to scoring. This is essentially identical to how scoring is calculated above but with a significant change once points are tallied.
    • Active player has highest score: If the active player (Who declared last chance) has the highest or tied highest score, they have won their bet! They then also add the value of their largest colour set to their score for the round.
      Other players: All the other players ignore their current scores, instead only scoring their largest colour set.
    • Active player does not have highest score: This means the active player has lost their bet! The active player ignores their score and only scores their colour set.
      Other players: All other players score their cards as usual.
    • Final scores: Once scores are calculated and tallied as described above, they should be recorded before play progresses to the next round.
• ​​End turn: If the active does not or cannot end the round, then play progresses to the player on their left.
• End of round: Regardless of how a round ends, players should record their scores and all cards are shuffled back into the deck in preparation for the next round.

Endgame
There are 2 ways Sea Salt & Paper can end.
Firstly and least likely, if a player manages to acquire 4 mermaid cards... they win!

Otherwise, the game has a endgame scoring target, which is 30-40 VPs depending on player count. When this target is reached during scoring it triggers the game end and players calculate their final total VPs.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Broadly speaking, Sea Salt & Paper is fairly straightforward; collect sets and play duos. There are several ways to collect sets, including based on colours. Players will often be faced with various on which card to take and optimisation is key here.
Although players will also need to adapt to circumstances as they may need to deal with cards they might not initially want.

Sea Salt & Paper however, puts some quite unusual and unique mechanics into play that have unusual impact on the game and the way some of these mechanics synch up is interesting.

I'm struggling to recall another card game in which cards that are played and cards in hand score equally. It's very important here though since it ties in with the mechanic that allows players to bet on 'winning' the round. 
When a player chooses to announce 'last chance', they'll know what cards other players have played but they won't know what they've kept in their hand. This means there's always an element of push-your-luck because the announcer will never know what others have kept back.
Canny players may decide to not play duo cards in an attempt to lure others into a false sense of security but the trade off is that they won't get utilise those cards' benefits.

There's also a higher level of play about noting what cards other players take and responding. 
Drawing cards blindly gives the player a useful ability of using one of them to cover a card in one of the discard piles, potentially denying it to another player if you think they want it.

While Sea Salt & Paper players has a moderately quick playtime and is mostly easy to learn, it's a bit fiddly when it comes to scoring.
Not only do players have to score both played cards and ones in hand but sometimes they need to discard their scoring and score again... but differently thanks to someone triggering 'Last Chance'.
I'm not sure the the gameplay this push-your-luck mechanic adds to the game is worth the extra hassle it causes with scoring.
Sea Salt & Paper is also seems like something of a slow burn when it comes to gameplay which boils down to choosing which card to take and whether to play duos or not. It can feel a little unexciting or unengaging.

Mechanically, there's some fun things going on with Sea Salt & Paper but the game didn't quite grab me in the times that we played it but as I said, it could just be a slow burn that requires a few more plays to grasp. I wouldn't object to trying it again.

30th August 2022

Tuesday night gaming with the Woking Gaming Club continued with The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine is actually an earlier iteration of The Crew: Mission Deep Sea which I've already blogged about and the two games are more or less identical.
Read about The Crew: Mission Deep Sea here and it'll give a good idea how The Quest of Planet Nine plays.
As such I'm not going to do a full write for ​The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, instead I'll just note one area of difference between the two.

Task cards: These are much more straightforward in The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine.
All the objectives are exclusively about acquiring certain numbers in certain colours, e.g., blue 7, yellow 2 and so on.
Consequently, The Quest for Planet Nine is a bit more straightforward, this makes it perhaps a little easier to play as it does not present players with having to deal with more left-field tasks like 'I can only win the first and last hands'.
The upside is that it has greater accessibility and will be easier to play with people who aren't so heavily into games.

30th August 2022

It's a Tuesday evening and we're with the Woking Board Gaming Club at The Sovereigns to play trick-taking card Scout.

Step right up, step right up friends. Prepared to be entertained and thrilled by the most death-defying, deck-dealing, trick-taking card game you ever set eyes on.

What's in a game?

• ​Cards: Scout uses a deck of 45 cards. The cards seem a little longer than typical playing cards.
  Unusually, each card is numbered twice, once at the 'top', then another number upside-down at the 'bottom'. These numbers are for the most part of different value and range from 1-10.
  Cards have small line-art illustrations of various circus trappings and also names of circus players who I suppose performs the acts. 
• Tokens: There are several types of card token in Scout.
  Dollar: These cute little tokens are proportioned like like bank notes, each one represents a dollar which translates to a victory point (VP.).
  Scoring tokens: These are all double-sided, one side has a positive score and the other a negative one, i.e., a +1 point token is also a -1 point token on other side since scores can go into the negative. Different valued tokens are differently shaped.
  Scout & show token: These tokens are shaped like a old style car.
  First player marker: Usually I don't both mentioning first player markers but this one is shaped like a top hat!

The quality of the cards in scout are average which is to say that they are what you'd expect of a modern game.
The tokens feel sturdy and well made.

While each card contain smudges of a pair attractive bright colours there's little artwork in Scout, what there is, is either monochrome illustration or stylised and slightly cartoony. It fits the loose circus theme well enough though.

Only numbers are utilised in Scout, no iconography related to game play appears which means the game is easily understood.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: The cards used will be determined by player count. Take those cards and shuffle them into a face-down deck.
• Tokens: Give each player a scout & show token.
• First player: Determine a start player and give them the first player token.

On to play
Scout is played over a number of rounds equal to the player count, i.e., if there are 4 players, there will be 4 rounds.
Each round will consist of numerous hands of card being played, players will take turns trying to empty their own hands while also accumulating cards and dollars into their own playing area.
The game uses a traditional turn structure with the active player acting and play progressing to the player on their left.
Broadly speaking, the active player can choose 1 of 2 actions and a round consists of the following:

• Deal: All the cards in the deck are dealt face-down to the players.
  Keep order: Upon picking up their cards, each player should splay them out from left-to-right and view the numbers.
  Players cannot change the order of their cards. 
  Rotate: Players can however, rotate their cards 180' and use the upside-down numbers.
  This can only be done once at the start of a round.
• Actions: The active player has a choice of 1 of the following 2actions.
  • Show: This action allows the active player to put a trick into play.
    Opening play: If it is the first turn of a round or no trick is in play for whatever reason, the active player must play a trick. This becomes the active trick.
    Trick: To play a trick, the active player must play 1 or more cards from their hand face-up into a central playing area.
    When playing more than 1 card, they must be adjacent to each other in the active player's hand.
    There are 2 types of trick.
    Run: The active player may play any number of cards that increase or decrease in sequence. E.g., a 2, 3 ,4, 5 or a 9, 8, 7.
    Set: The active player may play a set of any size, that is 2-of-a-kind, 3-of-a-kind and so on.
    Trump: If an active trick has already been put into play by another player, the active player can possibly trump it in a couple of ways.
    Basically, playing new trick which has more cards than the current trick will always trump it.
    Additionally, playing a new trick with an equal number of cards as the current trick can trump it if the new trick is the same kind of trick but has higher numbers OR is a set vs a run. I.e., a any 3-of-a-kind will beat any run of 3 numbers.
    Finally, when the active player trumps a previous player's trick, they take all of those player's cards and puts them face-down in their personal playing area, these will score VPs at the game end.
    So, what happens when the active play cannot trump the active trip? This brings me to...
  • Scout: If the active player cannot trump the active trick, they must scout instead. This involves taking a card from the active trick and adding it to their own hand. There are a couple of provisos though.
    Take card: A card can only be taken from either end of the active trick, not from the middle, obviously if there's only 1 card in a active trick, then it is taken.
    Add to hand: Upon taking a card from the active trick, it can be flipped to either orientation and placed anywhere in the active player's hand.
    This can be very helpful as it can be used to fill gaps in blocks of cards.
    Compensation: Whenever a card is scouted from the active trick, whoever played that trick will receive a dollar from the supply as compensation for their performer being poached.
  • Scout & Show: Each player has a scout & show token. Once per round, the active player may flip their token to perform a scout & show action.
    The active player can first perform the scout action as explained above and then also perform the show action also as explained above.
    This is a powerful move, not only does it allow the active player to potentially fill a gap in their cards while decreasing the size of the active trick it also allows them to immediately play a trick. Used effectively, the scout & show action can be a game changer.
• End of turn: Once the active player has completed their action, play progresses to the player on their left.
• End of round:  Play throughout a round continues until 1 of 2 conditions are met.
  Empty hand: If the active player manages to empty their hand, that is, no longer have any cards to play, then the round immediately ends.
  Unbeaten trick: If a player has put a trick into play and it is still the active trick when they become the active player again, i.e., all other players scouted: Then round immediately ends.
  • Round scoring: When a round ends, it is immediately scored as per the following criteria.
    Dollar: Each dollar token a player has acquired (As a result of having their tricks scouted.) earn that player 1VP.
    Trumped tricks: Each card a player has in their personal area from trumping other player's tricks also earns them 1VP.
    Hand: Each card that a player has in their hand will cost them 1VP! 
    Note: If someone ended a round due to playing a unbeaten trick, their hand does not count against their VPs.
    Also; the active trick does not score (or lose.) any VPs.
    Once points for the current round has have been calculated and added to the scores from previous rounds, play progresses to the next round.
• Next round: Gather up all the cards and shuffle them back into a face-down deck and deal them all out to the players again.
  First player: Pass the first player token to the player on the left who will now open the next round by performing the show action.

Endgame
When a number of rounds equal to the player count had been finished, the game ends, the final round is scored and we go to final scoring.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Scout packs quite a lot of gameplay into quite a small package.
At the heart of it, players are broadly speaking faced with 2 approaches towards a central conundrum: Should a player try and empty their hand or try and build up the size of the tricks in their hand instead?
Both have advantages and drawbacks.

A player emptying their hand is good because it minimises their losses if the round ends but playing small or single card tricks is a giving other players easy opportunities to score points by trumping them.
There's also the fact that a player ending up with for example a single card in their hand can have trouble playing it. If someone else plays any 2 card trick, there's no way a single card can trump it.

A player building up the cards and consequently the trick(s) in their hand can be hugely beneficial; playing a trick containing a large number of cards can end a round in that player's favour as not only do they not lose points for cards in card, they earn dollars for having their trick scouted.
The big risk is that a round may end before playing the big trick, which could lose them a lot of points.

There's also the possibility of working towards both, removing single cards or small tricks from a player's hand may create new tricks.

All of this is of course contextual. The cards a player chooses to have in their hand will influence their decisions as well as the actions of their opponents.
There's a higher level of play that comes from watching what others do and seeing if they are building up a trick or not - especially of they're scouting from small active tricks. Also quite often, when players also playing single card tricks, they're looking to combine cards into a bigger trick or looking to save a trick for later.

The show & scout action is also very important, if an opponent has played a big, using it well can genuinely bring about a reversal of fortune.

It means that players are always faced with meaningful decisions, playing and acquiring cards always has an impact.

I've seen some criticism that there's a notable amount of luck in Scout - and there's some truth to that but truth be told; so do many games of this type, especially card games. Which is why playing multiple hands of cards over multiple rounds acts as a 'balancer'.

There's also a quirk where the game is different according to player count.
For starters; game length can dramatically change according to player count: Not only do more players mean there's more turns per round, there's also more rounds to go as well! That being said, Scout doesn't have a particularly long play time. A 5-player game takes in the region of an hour to play out.
Hand size also varies quite with player count. In a 5-player game everyone starts with 9 cards, while in a 3-player game each player starts with 12 cards. It means that bigger tricks are more likely occur in games with a lower player count, something that players will want to take into account.

Another minor quibble is that it's a little tricky to pick up some of the rules about trumping an active trick with a new trick of the same size.

Minor grumbling aside though, I think Scout is an excellent trick taking card game that has a good amount of player interaction, gives players something to think about but can also provide some surprises.
If trick taking card games are something you like, then Scout is a game that you should definitely try.

21st August 2022

It's Sunday again and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness.

So there's this Noah guy who has to put groups of animals on to his ark but it turns out there's way more species than anyone would have thought!
He's quite busy now and has instructed his staff (The players!) to load the more mundane animals on to the ark.
​How should the players do this? Through the crucible of competitive play of course!

Caveat: we've only ever played this game digitally.

​What's in a game?

• Game board: Noah features a circular decagon shaped board, that is a 10-sided shape.
  Around the perimeter of the board is a scoring track and along 5 of its 10 sides, the board also displays 5 docks.
  Despite the scoring track going over the artwork for the dock, there's no links between them.
• Cards: The game makes use of 2 types of card.
  • ​Animal cards: Each animal card has a cute, cartoonish illustration of its particular animal species, be it cat, dog, horse, bear etc. Each card also displays the following information.
    Weight: This is basically a numerical value from 1 to 9.
    Type: Animal cards are male or female as depicted by the text colour, being blue for male and pink for female unsurprisingly.
    Movement indicator: This is linked to animal type and affects the Noah token. More on this below.
    Penalty points: These are depicted as tear icons that run in a column down the left side and may have 0, 1 or more. The more a player has the game, the more points they lose.
    Ability: Some cards may have a special ability which will be indicated by an icon near the top right corner.
  • ​Ferry cards: There are 8 of these, they are all identical and in a landscape orientation, shown in the top left corner of every card is '21' which is the ferry's 'weight limit'.
• Token: Noah has a singular large token that depicts er.... Noah!

Colourful high quality artwork is used throughout Noah and the animal cards in particular look good and depict their subject matter well and clearly. There's not much else to say about it other than it's a style clearly aimed at younger players.

There's about half a dozen icons used in the game, the movement icons are pretty self-explanatory, as are the tears. The remaining 5 or so icons for card ability are a little small and will probably have to be looked up in the rules until learned.
​I can't imagine it being a problem.

How's it play?
Setup

• Board: Put out the board and add 1 ferry card to each dock, place the remaining ferry cards as a reserve in the centre of the board.
  Noah: Place the Noah token on one of the ferries, any ferry will do.
• Cards: Sort the cards as per player count and shuffle the cards being used into a face-down deck.
  Deal 1 card each face-up on to each of the 5 ferries.
  Then deal 8 cards face-down to each player.
  Any remaining card will not be used during this round.
  
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
Noah is played over 3 rounds, the objective in all 3 rounds is for players to empty their hands as quickly as possible and thus, score as few points as possible. This is done by playing animal cards on to the ferry cards.
Noah follows a typical turn order with the active player acting, before play progresses to the player on their left.

• Play card: During their turn the active player must play a card on to one of the 5 ferries, there some rules and restrictions though.
  • Noah token: The player must play their card on to the ferry where the Noah token is located. Cards should be played on top of previous cards but splayed so that the information from previous cards is still displayed. This is actually quite important.
  • Setting type: Now it gets a little fiddly. Every ferry starts can start with a single animal card of any type. After a 2nd animal card is played on to a ferry, it will determine what following cards can be played on to that ferry in later turns by any player.
    Same type: If a male animal card is played on to another male card, then all cards that go on to that ferry from now on must also be male. The same applies with female cards; a female card played on another female means all cards played on that ferry must be female.
    Alternating: If the 2nd card played is of the opposite type (A female card played on a male card or vice-versa.), then all following cards on that ferry must alternative between male and female as indicated.
  • Move Noah: The Noah token is moved and the active player will be given a choice of 1 of 2 docks to send it to. The animal card they just played will indicate which 2 docks they can send it to.
    Female cards send Noah to one of the 2 adjacent docks and male cards to one of the 2 opposite docks.
  • Weight limit: Each animal card has a weight value and each ferry cannot hold a hold a combined weight of all cards that is greater than 21.
    If a player cannot play a card that would keep the weight to 21 or less, they must instead pick up and add all the animal cards on that ferry to their hand. This is a bad thing as the objective is to discard cards!
    Then they play any card from their hand on to the now empty ferry to make it the new 1st card on that ferry.
  • Hitting 21: Conversely, if the card just played by the active player takes the weight to exactly 21 (Which is what players will want.), then the following 4 actions occur:
    Move Noah: Move the Noah token as explained above.
    Remove cards: All the animal cards on the ferry that got to weight 21 are discarded out of play as is the ferry card itself.
    New ferry: A new ferry card is drawn from the reserve to replace the one ust discarded.
    Give cards: The active player gives 1-4 cards from their to another player, the exact number will be dependant on how many ferries have already been discarded out of play (1-4 ferries.).
    Out of cards: If either there's no ferry card to replace one just discarded, or a player empties their hand, then the round is over. More on this below.
• Activate ability: Some cards will come with a special ability is played, it's ability should be resolved as per the text for that ability.
  Abilities include actions such as looking at an opponent's hand or swapping cards with an opponents.
• Pairs: If the species of the card just played by the active player matches the species it was played on, e.g., a cat is played on another cat, then the active player gets another turn after the current one is completed. This can be chained multiple times.
• End of turn: Once the active player has completed their turn(s), player progresses to the player on their left.
• End of round: The current round will end if either of the 2 following criteria are met.
  Empty hand: If the active player has emptied their hand.
  No ferries: Once the 4th ferry card has been discarded, they will be no ferry card remaining in the reserve.
  • Tally points: All players tally the penalty points of all cards they still have in their hand at the end of the round and increase their score on the tracker correspondingly.
• Next round: A new round is prepared as per setup above.

Endgame
Noah is played over 3 rounds. After the 3rd round has concluded, players count their finishing scores.

Points are tallied, lowest score wins!

Overall
Noah is in essence a light trick-taking game and most of the mechanics are pretty straightforward; play a card and try to get that set to 21 but there's a couple of wrinkles in there.

Firstly, the rules for all male, all female or alternating animal cards will present players with some interesting conundrums. Players will need to try and think ahead, a card they play early in a round will have a significant effect later.
For example if a player only has 1 female card and plays it on another female card, then they won't be able to play any of their male cards on that ferry.
Players will also need to pay attention to the tears on their cards, playing cards with high penalty-points is vital to keep a score low.
As expressed above, I feel this rule is a bit fiddly but without it, the game would be too simple. Having to think about numbers and colours is what marks the game out as a bit different and forces players to make meaningful decisions

Secondly, the mechanic for moving the Noah token can throw a real element of unpredictability and even some 'take that' into the game. A player can move Noah to a ferry that has a weight of '20' for example, making it hard for the following player to play a card on it.
It goes both ways though and sometimes, Noah will just by chance be moved to a ferry where the following player cannot play a card.
I'm not sure how I feel about this, it adds some much needed unpredictability to the game which prevents players from over planning. However, it veers very close to the frustrating side, fans of heavier games may find this off putting.

For me, it was a little frustrating, simplistic and unengaging.
Noah is also a quite 'negative' game about not gaining points and having the lowest possible score. Generally, this type of scoring doesn't sit well with me.

Having said that, It's fair to say that I'm probably not the target audience here
​.
From its colourful, cheerful presentation, light trick-taking mechanic and easy to setup and learn rules, it's clear that Noah is a family friendly game.
It also has a reasonably quick play time that does not outstay its welcome.

If you're looking for a light card game with some distinctive gameplay to play with more casual or younger players, then Noah might be what you're looking for.

20th August 2022

It's a Saturday night and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some gaming goodness.

Cross an ocean, hop from island to island on a lonely journey to find your paradise island and tranquillity.

Tranquility is a cooperative, game about assessing risks and playing cards.
​Also, the rules state that players should not explicitly discuss their cards between them, so I guess that could be considered a form of tranquillity?

What's in a game?
Tranquility is a card game that comes packaged in a distinctive looking cubic box. All the game's cards are an unusual square shape.

• Island cards: There are 80 of these cards and they are numbered 1-80. There are 8 pictures across the cards and each different illustration depicts a stylised picturesque island that has a reflection which curiously shows the island at night.
• Start cards: There are 5 of these, the illustration shows a boat at an island during sunrise.
• Finish cards: Again there are 5 of these, this time it shows the boat at an island at dusk.
• Border cards: These cards actually have no in-game function. Tranquility uses a 6x6 grid and since the packaging is too small to include a mat, these cards are used to create the border of the grid.
• Expansion cards: There are a number of expansion cards that add extra gameplay elements to Tranquility, although we've never made use of them.

Quality wise, the cards are pretty average. Not much more to say here.

The presentation and artwork for Tranquility is excellent. The illustrations show a series of unique and interesting islands. The colourful artwork has a bright, clean and stylised almost minimalist look to it that does a great job of conveying the subdued isolation of a sea bound journey.

There's barely any iconography in Tranquility and what there is of it is reserved for the expansion cards.

How's it play?
Set up

• Grid: Use the border cards to create a 6x6 grid with 6 border cards per side.
• Players:
  • Start cards: Give each player a start card.
  • Player decks: Shuffle the 5 finish cards into the island cards and shuffle all of them into a face-down deck. Then deal the entire deck out to the players as evenly as possible, thus giving each player their own personal deck.
  • Starting hand: Each player should draw a hand of 5 cards from their personal deck.
  • Add start card: Now each player should shuffle their start card into their personal deck to create a new face-down personal deck.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
The objective in Tranquility is to cooperatively fill all 36 spaces in the 6x6 grid with island cards. Furthermore, all the cards must be positioned in numerical order (Although not necessarily placed in sequence.) going from low to high and left to right, starting in the bottom left corner and ending in the top right one.
It's worth noting that while cards are placed in a 6x6 grid, the numbers 'wrap around', this means they are essentially in a long line.

Tranquility uses a traditional turn order with the active player taking an action before player progress to the player on their left.
During their turn, the active player can do 1 of 2 possible actions.

• Play card: The active player may place a card into the grid with the following provisos.
  • Numeric order: The card being played must be of a higher value than the cards before it and a lower value than cards ahead of it.
  • No adjacent cards: If there are no adjacent cards to the left and right of the card being placed, then it can be placed 'for free'.
  • 1 adjacent card: If there is 1 card in play that would be adjacent to the card being placed, then the active player must discard a number of cards from their hand equal to the numerical difference between the 2 cards. Thus placing a 35 next to a 37 means the player must discard 2 cards.
    Since there is always a difference of at least 1 between cards, the player must always discard at least 1 card.
    Additionally, since a player only ever has 5 cards in hand, the difference between adjacent cards can never be greater than 4.
  • 2 adjacent cards: If a card is put down into a space between 2 cards, then the active player discards cards according to the side that makes them discard the least amount of cards.
    E.g., if there is a 12, then a empty space, then a 18 and the active player puts a 17 into that space, they only discard 1 card.
• Pass: The other action available allows the active to choose not to play a card and pass but must discard 2 cards to do so.
• Draw cards: Regardless of whether the active player played a card or passed, they must refill their hand back up to five cards, if there are less than the required number of cards left in their deck, then they draw whatever they can.
  • Start card: If and when a player draws a start card, it must be played as their card on their next turn, unless a start has already been played, in which case it just sits in the players hand until discarded.
    When a start card is played, all players must collectively discard 8 cards, then all players immediately draw back up to 5 cards.
• Discards: Whenever cards are discarded for any reason, they are done so face-down, players can never look through their own or other players' discard piles.
• Next player: Once the active player has drawn cards, player progresses to the player on the left.

Endgame
Tranquility continues until 1 of the 2 following conditions are met.

Cannot play: If the active player does not have a card to play or cannot discard 2 cards to pass, then the players collectively lose.
Finish card: If all 36 spaces in the grid have been filled and the active player has a finish card in their hand, they can play it and the players collectively win.

Overall
​Tranquility feels like a puzzle orientated game with a minor element of mathematics.

The game is clearly dived into early and late game.
The early game is where players will look to put cards into play without other adjacent cards to avoid discarding cards.
The late game is where players have no choice but to discard in order to play cards and have to decide which and how many cards to discard and discarding is the crux of the game.

Discarding means getting rid of cards which may prove vital later in the game. Players will have to judge which cards are 'safer' to discard and hope alternative cards will appear. It is the chief risk that players take in Tranquility.
This is is why the start card rule can prove tricky for players, especially if it appears early in the game, having to discard 8 cards is harsh - it's nearly 10% of the deck.

Curiously though, discarding cards gets easier as the game progresses. Typically numbers will get locked out as cards are played. E.g., if a 51 is placed adjacent to a 54, then cards 52 & 53 can no longer be used and can be freely discarded. Additionally, once the first start card has been played, any others can be safely discarded. Conversely, it's always risky to discard a finish card.
All of this means that decisions in the early game are the most important and the game will 'settle down' as it progresses.

Having said all of that, there is a issue I have with the game; which is that there's definitely a formula we found that players can employ to greatly increase their chances to win.
It's not a guarantee and I never feel like we could be complacent when we played, even though we now generally win the vast majority of games we play and the game seems 'beaten'.

Tranquility is fairly easy to learn, especially considering it's a cooperative game - quite often cooperative games have complex engines to drive the gameplay but that's not the case here. 
The game provides some conundrums to face and problems to solve. Players will need to manage the risk of their discards and make decisive decisions.

If all of that sounds like some you'll like then Tranquility is definitely a game that's worth playing, just don't play it too often.

24th July 2022

​It's a Sunday afternoon and we're in The Sovereigns for some gaming fun.

With a couple of exceptions, the rules are broadly speaking, identical to vanilla Love Letter. Luckily, these additional rules don't break the game like some other reskins do but by the same measure, nor do they add anything to it and truth be told, can be easily ignored.
Which is something I would do since I've always found the original Love Letter to have the best implementation of the rules.

So is it worth getting Love Letter: Adventure Time?
​
If you've already got some version of Love Letter; unless you're a completionist or a fan of the cartoon then you can skip this.

However, if you're a fan and don't have a copy of Love Letter, it's a fantastic game and you should definitely get one and this version is a good as any.
In fact if you don't have a copy of Love Letter, you should get one regardless!

23rd June 2022

It's another Thursday evening and we're in Aldershot for another gaming night.

​Village Green - a local game for local people?
It turns out that competitions between local villages to have the best village green can be serious business!

What's in a game?

• Green cards: These cards each depict some garden feature such as trees, a fountain or a gazebo.
  In the top-left of most cards is a symbol which dictates the card's flower type and colour.
  At the bottom of the card may be one or more of various icons, such as types of trees, lawns etc. These are mainly used to meet scoring criteria, although some symbols have special actions associated with them.
• Award cards: These cards all contain scoring criteria, that is, ways to score points from green cards. There's a pretty diverse selection of scoring methods here. Some of the cards include ways to lose VPs which player will obviously want to avoid.
• Village cards: There are 5 of these double sided cards. The 'front' of each card depicts a individual village in full colour (Along with 1 VP.), while the flip side show's the same village but monotone and missing the VP.

​Well that's it for the components - a deck of cards.
The card quality average and what you'd expect from games nowadays.

Watercolour styled artwork is used throughout the game on the green and village cards. depicting various items that could be found on an English village green (SIC). It's a pleasant style and the artwork all looks appropriately good, fitting it's theme quite nicely.

The iconography is not so well implemented though. I felt the symbols used for the different types of flower could have been a bit more distinct or individual, especially since the icons are quite small.
I also felt the 3 different types of tree icon displayed on the bottom of the green cards and award cards could have had been more distinctive.
Otherwise, the iconography is fine.

How's it play?
Set up

• Village cards: Randomly deal a village cards to each player. Each should put it down face-up with the side showing 1 VPS.
  This will constitute the top-left of their 'tableau' in their personal playing area.
• Green cards: Take the allotted number of green cards (As determined by player count.) and shuffle them into a face-down deck.
  Next; deal 3 green cards face-down to each player.
  Finally, draw 3 cards from the deck and place in them face-up in a row next to the deck.
• Award cards: Shuffle the award cards into a face-down deck. Unlike the starting green cards, 3 award cards are dealt FACE-UP to each and placed in a row next each player's respective village card and are considered already in play.
  Then, as with the green cards, draw 3 award cards and place them face-up in a row next to the award card deck.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
The objective in Village Green is to construct a tableau of 3x3 green cards while on the 'outside' of this 3x3 grid create a row and column of award cards to score points off of the green cards. Thus creating an overall 4x4 grid - including the village card which will be in the top-left corner.
Village Green uses the usual turn structure of having the active player complete their action then having play progress to the player on their left.
The active player can take 1 of the following 2 actions.

• Bonus action: OK, this is not 1 of the usual 2 actions a player can take, before their action, the active player may perform 1 of the 2 following action once per game by flipping their village card over (And losing the VP it provides.).
  • Wipe all 3 cards from either the green card or award row and replace them.
  • Place a green card on top of another green card (This is not permitted otherwise.), however, the criteria for matching symbols/colours must still be met - see below for more on this.
• Draw and play a green card: The active player must take one of the 3 green cards (Or draw blindly from the green card deck) from the central area and add it to their hand. Then they must play or discard any card from their hand.
  Play green card: A green card may be played face up in any part of the green card 3x3 grid, however there is a restriction; the flower type and colour must match at least 1 of the those elements with all orthogonally adjacent green cards.
  E.g., if a player wants to put down a card with a blue rose symbol, all the orthogonally adjacent cards must have either a rose type and/or blue colour.
  If there are no matching types, then a card cannot be played.
  Finally, green cards cannot be played on top of other green cards - unless the card has a lawn symbol.
  Green cards also have the following rules, depending on the symbols  at the bottom of the card.
  Lawn: If a green card has a lawn, that means it may be covered by another green card later in the game, although the usual rules about type and colour still apply. Covered cards do not score at the game end.
  Pond: Every visible pond symbol scores VPs at the game end.
  Structure: When a green cards with a structure symbol is played, the active player must immediately draw and place an award card following the usual rules for award cards.
  Trees: There are 3 types of trees and they can appear in various combinations on cards. Typically, trees are used for scoring.
• Draw and play an award card: The active player must take a award card from the display of 3 (Or draw blindly from the award deck.). Then they must play it face-up into the column or row outside the 3x3 grid. An award card can be played anywhere in a row or column and unlike green cards, may be placed on top of other award cards. This means the award card beneath is no longer scored and may be something that a player wants to do if a award card will score negative or low VPs.
• End of turn: Whenever a card is taken from either the green or award card rows, it is immediately replaced. Once the active player has concluded their action, play progress to the player on their left.

Endgame
There are 3 criteria which may end the game.
If either the green card or award card deck is depleted, or a player has placed 9 green cards, then the end has been triggered. The current is completed and the game goes to scoring.

Player score from the following sources:
A face-up village card scored 1 VP
Each visible pond scores 2 VPs.
Award cards score all the (Up to 3.) cards in their respective row/column.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
On a basic level, Village Green is a fair simple game - pick a card and play a card, which makes it straightforward and quick to understand.
However, like all good games, it's easy to learn but hard to master and this is definitely the case with this game.

What makes Village Green tricky is having to literally think 2 steps ahead. Players will need to pay attention to a green card's type and colour when playing it because it will influence what is played next to it.
Not only is positioning important when playing a green card but the order in which they are played will matter too.
E.g., putting a green card into the centre of the 3x3 grid means that all 4 orthogonally adjacent cards placed subsequently must match the flower type and colour for that card. If the centre card is played last, then it would have to match all 4 cards already played and that requires planning ahead.
Matching 3 types and 3 colours might not seem difficult but remember, players will only have a hand of 3 green cards and a row of 3 cards to draft from.
Sure, a player can keep drawing and discarding green cards to hopefully get what they need, but this can catch a player out. Once the deck is gone - it's game over. Additionally, while rinsing through green cards, other players may be completing their 3x3 grids, which is also game over.
Ultimately, players will need to commit to taking some risks and play early cards with gaps between them for some wriggle room for placing later cards and also rely on a bit of luck to get what they need.

Award cards are also tricky to manage but in a different way.
Players start with three, which can be good as it gives each player a initial individual scoring target to aim for. However, as green cards get played and players may be forced to put them in certain positions thanks to type and colour, it may end up that a award card scores less, zero or even worse - negative VPs!
Luckily, award cards can be nullified by covering them with other award cards later. This though raises another quandary for players to ponder.
The later an award card is played in the game, the harder it will be to place in a way to maximise it's scoring potential.

Finally, there's some potential for higher level play by watching what cards other players are putting down, trying to anticipate their actions and denying them what they need.
Although, since some of the icons are so small, it can be physically tricky looking at other players' tableaus with leaning over them!

All of these mechanics are good because they always provide players with meaningful decisions as they try and positions cards so that they match type and colour as well as scoring criteria.

Having written all of that brings me to a drawback of the game, which is that it can be a harsh and unforgiving experience.
Players will be frustrated when unable to play cards and are instead forced to discard. It's likely that some players will end up without all their possible green or award cards - I know I did on my first play.

So despite being easy to learn, I'm not sure this is a game for more 'casual players'? If it 'groks' with them, they'll be fine. Otherwise it'll probably take a game or two to get handle on where to player cards.

There's not denying it's a elegant, fairly engaging game. It plays quick enough and will provide players the challenge of being able to place all their cards and also optimise scoring opportunities.
Definitely worth a try in my opinion.