17th March 2020

Tuesday has rolled around again and we're at 'The Sovereigns' with the Woking Gaming Club.

​The club members agreed that due to the threat of the Covid-19 virus, this would be the last get-together for the club until we were no longer required to socially-distance ourselves.

The first game of the evening was 'Cartographers'.
Do you fancy getting out and about, doing a bit of exploring? Perhaps finding a forest or two, or even a river? Then this game may be for you.
That's right, in these days of self isolation and being stuck at home; we played a game about going outside!

Cartographers is a style of game I've yet to play called 'roll and write'.

What's in a game?

• Pad of blank maps: There are 100 of these blank double sided maps. One side features the wilderness and the other the wasteland, the wasteland is the harder map play with. Both sides contain a 11x11 grid with 'mountains' and 'ruins', as well as space for scoring and personalisation. The wasteland side also features an area of wasteland.

• Season cards: There are 4 season cards for 4 seasons! Each season card determines which 2 scoring cards apply that season. A Season card also has a numerical 'time value' that determines the length of that season. 
• Scoring cards: 4 of these are randomly drawn from a deck of 16. Each one is used to determine how scoring occurs at the end of 2 of the 4 'seasons' (Or rounds.). Thus there will be 4 ways to score during the game.
• Edict cards: Labelled A to D, used in conjunction with scoring cards.
• Exploration cards: Generally, each landscape card depicts 1 of the game's 4 main types of terrain. The card will also show 2 shapes a bit like Tetris shapes, sometimes one of these shapes will also a coin next to it. Some exploration cards feature a 'ruin' instead. Exploration cards also have a numerical value that is used to determine the length of a season.
• Ambush cards: Ambush cards contain the game's 5th terrain type - monsters! Each card also contains a shape. There are 4 of ambush cards. These cards allow other players to mess with your exploration.
• Pencils: The game comes with 4 pencils.

All of the components are of an acceptable quality. The cards are mostly covered in information, but what little art there is, is of a reasonable quality.
The only bugbear with the game is the pad of blank maps, which you tear out and give to each player. Even though 100 sheets enough for a lot of games, the idea of it makes me wince!
If you do run out of sheets however, you can download and print extras from the website.
​
Special note!
Dave, the game's owner had the wisdom and foresight to also purchase a couple of sets of coloured fine line markers to use with the game (More about that below.).

How's it play?
First there's setup.

• Put out the season cards in a face-up stack in seasonal order, starting with spring.
• Put out the edict cards in a row, sequentially from 'A' to 'D'.
• Shuffle the scoring cards and draw 4, place one under each of the edict cards. 
• Shuffle the ambush cards, draw 1 ambush card face-down and add it to the exploration deck. Now shuffle the exploration deck and place it in a face-down stack next to the stack of season cards.

We're now ready to go.
Play begins by turning over an exploration card.

• If it's a normal exploration card, it will have a terrain type (Farm, forest, village or water.) and 2 different shapes. Each player must choose one of the shapes and draw it as the depicted terrain type on their map sheet. The drawings need to clearly show the type of terrain it is. The chosen shape can be rotated or flipped in any way the player wishes and marked as the terrain type used. Some shapes allow the player to earn a coin.
• If it's a 'ruins' card, then flip over another card. The shape used from the second card must include a ruins space from the map sheet.
• If it's an ambush card, then each player must pass their map sheet to a neighbouring player, that player then draws the shape on the ambush card on the map sheet. Obviously they should place it in the most inconvenient manner possible! After a ambush card has been resolved, it is removed from play.
• Rift card: If a rift card is drawn, each player gets to draw a single 1x1 box of any terrain type, anywhere normally allowed.

So that's the main rules. There are some clarifications below.

• When drawing a shape, it cannot overlap over a previously drawn shape, a mountain, wasteland or the edge of the  map. It can though, overlap a ruins space and depending on cards drawn may require a ruins space.
• If a player cannot draw a shape for whatever reason, they draw a 1x1 box with any terrain on any legal space instead.
• If a player surrounds a mountain (Orthogonally - diagonals count for nothing in this game!), then they earn a coin.
• When all players have drawn their shape, the next exploration card is drawn. Each exploration card has a 'time value' which is a numerical value. When the combined value of all exploration cards drawn equals or exceeds the time value on the season card, then the season is over. Different seasons have different time values, winter has the least 'time' as winter has less daylight.

Scoring & end of season
Scoring occurs at the end of every season and is broken down as follows (As well as end of round actions.):

• Scoring cards: The 2 scoring cards for that season are scored.
• Coins: Each coin a player has acquired earns a victory point. They are scored over every round a player has them. Thus a coin earned in the first round, will be also scored in all subsequent rounds.
• Monsters: Monsters don't score points, but they do deduct them! Every empty space that is adjacent to a monster space, loses that player a victory point.
• Points from all sources are tallied for the round.
• A new ambush card is added to the exploration deck and all played exploration cards are shuffled back into a new stack. If the ambush card from the round just completed wasn't encountered, then there will be 2 ambush cards in the stack!
• The season card from the completed round is removed from play and the next season is revealed (With new scoring and time value.).

Endgame
Once the score for the winter season has been calculated, the score for all 4 seasons is tallied. Highest score wins. ​

Overall
​Cartographers is a fun and interesting game.

Interesting because of how the scoring works, it gives players short term and long term goals. Not only are there 4 scoring objectives, each objective is scored twice and they are scored asymmetrically.

Objective 'A' is scored in rounds 1 & 4. So working towards it in rounds 1 & 4 will earn a player points. Objective 'A' scores no points in rounds 2 & 3, however working towards objective 'A' in rounds 2 & 3 can pay dividends when it's scored again in round 4. This may mean neglecting other scoring opportunities though.

​Objective 'B' on the other hand, scores in rounds 1 & 2, after that it's worthless. So to make the most of this scoring opportunity, players will have to concentrate on it for the first half of the game.

All of this makes players think about short, long and mid term goals and how to maximise scoring opportunities.
Additionally, players cannot predict what terrain/shapes will appear if at all or the order they appear. Nor can they predict when ambush cards will appear. Players also need to be flexible and be able to change their plans.

This culminates in giving players lots of factors to consider and decisions to make - which is good.

Another interesting thing about Cartographer is the number of players it supports. It's essentially only limited by the drawing implements/time required. You could use the entire pad and play with 100 people at once if you had the time/space/pencils!

There is theoretically no downtime as everyone draws their shapes at the same time. I say theoretically, because they'll always be that player that takes too and wants to draw in too much detail! 'Do you really need to draw the chimneys on the houses in your village. What! Now you're doing the smoke too!'. You know what I mean.

The addition of the coloured markers - whilst an extra expense added quite a lot to the experience. I imagine using the pencils a little duller. It's a shame they couldn't include coloured pencils or something along those lines. Obviously costs need to be kept down though.

Even so, I found it a good game and would play it again.

11th February 2020

Tuesday night with the gaming club at 'The Sovereigns'  in Woking continues.

The final game of the night was 'Glory to Rome'.

Glory to Rome is a game about the glory of Rome, well sort of. It's a game about rebuilding Rome after the 'great fire of 64 A.D.'.
Become a leader of Rome by building fountains, villas and statues, even the Basilica! Of course, players also get to build a latrine... glory to Rome indeed. Well... I guess someone has to!

Glory to Rome is an engine building card game which has an interesting central premise; which is that the function of cards change in the context of how they're used. This isn't something new or unique to Glory to Rome, however I've not seen it used as extensively as in this game.

What's in a game
Glory to Rome has a lot of cards and some of these cards serve multiple functions.

Order cards
By far the biggest stack of cards in the game, order cards have multiple uses:

• Building: Each card can be used to represent a building that can be constructed. There are a lot of different buildings and each has a cost (In materials.) and a different function.
• ​Client role: Each card can be used to fulfil the role of a client. There are 6 types of client; patron, labourer, craftsman, architect, merchant & legionary. Client roles are explained below.
• Material: Buildings require materials to be built. Cards are used to represent the materials that must be used. There are 6 types of material; marble, rubble, wood, concrete, stone & brick.

Site cards
When constructing a building, it needs a site to lay the 'foundation' on. There are site cards for each of the 6 different types of material. Site cards are covered in stripes
Jacks
These cards are 'jack-of-all-trades'. They are wildcards.
Rome demands card
This oversized card goes in the centre of the playing area and is a discard pile/pool for order cards. 
Bonus cards
There are 6 bonus cards, one for each type of material. When scoring at the end, the player who has the highest amount of a material in their Vault acquires it's bonus card. Each bonus card is worth 3 victory points.
Leader card
Used to represent the first player in a round.

That's it for cards.

Player board
Player boards (Or camp board.) serve 2 functions. They are a player aid and they also track certain cards and actions the players have played. The boards track influence, clientele, stockpile & vault.

The quality of the components is pretty standard, nothing standout, but by no means nothing bad either.
The art on the cards is minimal, almost simplistic and feels a little bit amateurish. It does however, give the cards a distinct look, is uncluttered and clean looking. I guess it's down to taste.

How's it play?
Setup is pretty simple.

• Place the Rome demands card in the centre of the playing area, deal a number of face-up order cards into the 'pool' equal to the number of players.
• Place the jack cards next to the Rome demands card.
• Create 6 stacks for each of the 6 types of site card, the number of cards in each stack should be equal to the number of players. Excess sites should be placed in 'upside-down stacks', these excess cards become 'out-of-town' site cards. Out-of-town cards require extra foundation cards to be used.
• Deal 5 order cards to each player.
• Determine the starting player and give them the leader card.

​Now we're ready to go.

Whoever is the first player decides to either 'lead'... or think!

• Leading: If the starting player elects to lead, then they play a card from their hand. The role on that card is role that all players can perform in this round. If the starting player plays more than one card of the that roll at a time, then they can perform the action multiple actions. If the starting player doesn't have a card that matches a role they want to play, they can play a Jack as any role or 2 identical role cards as any role.
• Thinking: If a player chooses to think, they are essentially passing and can perform 1 of 3 actions. Take a Jack from the supply, refill their hand back up to 5 order cards, or if their hand is at 5+ cards they take a single order card.

Once the starting player has chosen their action, in turn order the other players decide whether they want to 'follow' or 'think'.

• Follow: To follow the leaders action, a player has to play a card with the same role as that played by the starting player, all the same rules for using Jacks and 'two-of-a-kind' apply.
• Thinking: As above.

Once all the players have chosen their actions, they are then carried out in turn order, starting with the first player.
When all players have completed their actions, all cards that were played as role cards are placed in the pool. Any Jacks played are returned to their stack.
Play proceeds to the next turn and the Leader card moves to the player to the left.

That's the basics out of the way, now on to what the role cards actually do.

• Patron: This allows the active player recruit patrons, this is done by taking an order card from the 'pool' on the Rome demands card and place it on the 'Clientele' side of their player board. What does this do? It'll be explained below.
• Labourer: This action allows the active player to acquire building materials. This is also done my taking an order card from the pool and placing it on the 'Stockpile' side of their player board.
• Craftsman: This role has a choice of actions. It allows the player to 'create a foundation'. The active player takes an order card of a building they want to construct from their hand and plays it in their playing area as the foundation. Out-of-town site cards require 2 foundation cards. Then the active player takes a site card from the matching site deck and places it beneath the foundation with the 'stripes' showing. OR, it allows the active player to build on an existing foundation by playing a card from their hand on to the site as a material (Provided it is the correct material of course.). If this completes a building, the site card is removed from the building and placed on the influence side of the active player's player board. Once a building is completed, it's ability becomes available to the player
• Architect: The Architect roll is identical to the Craftsmen role EXCEPT in one way, when choosing to add a material to a building, it is taken from the active player's Stockpile instead of their hand.
• Merchant: This allows the active player to move a card from their Stockpile to their Vault.
• Legionary: This allows the active player to send out soldiers to get stuff that they need. The active player decides what material they need (For example - marble.) and says, "Rome demands marble". The active player can take a marble card from the pool and place it in their Stockpile, the neighbouring players directly to the left and right of the active player must give them 1 marble card each (Which also goes into the active player's stockpile.), if the neighbouring player(s) do not have the material demanded, they reply with. "Glory to Rome!". Which I guess is board game speak for 'screw you'!

​Next is the player board.
The player board has 4 sides and each side has a function.

• Influence: All players start with 2 influence. Finishing buildings gives a player more influence. The more influence a player has, the more cards they can store in their Vault and Clientele sides of their game boards. Influence also counts as victory points at the end of the game
• Clientele: Patrons are stored in the Clientele side of their game board. Patrons stored here give the player extra or free actions. If a role is chosen by any player and a player has a client with that role in their Clientele, then when it's their turn they can perform that action without playing a card, they can also perform that action even if their chosen action is to think. Or if they play that role card, they get an extra action of that type.
• Stockpile: Cards are stored here as material, from here they can be moved to buildings, or to the Vault.
• Vault: Cards stored (Actually hidden.) here count towards victory points at the game end. The number of cards (Not the value.) that can be stored in the Vault is limited by a player's Influence score.

There are 44 different types of building, all of them have some sort of special ability that can influence the game.
I think that is more or less it for most rules.

Endgame
There are several criteria that trigger the end of the game.
Play continues until all site cards for all materials have been used, out-of-town site cards do not count towards this.
The deck of order cards is depleted.
The catacomb building is completed.
The Forum Romanum is built and the player who built it has at least one of each type client in Clientele and one of each material type in their Stockpile. If this occurs, then that player wins an outright victory! Victory points are not tallied!

When any of these conditions are met the game immediately ends and points are tallied (Except in the case of a Forum Romanum victory.).

Players score 1 point for each Influence point.
​Players score the cards hidden in their Vault.
Players score bonus cards for the materials in their Vault.

All victory points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Glory to Rome is pretty straightforward to learn once you get your head around the central premise that your hand represents, people, buildings, materials and more.
Like other games that use similar mechanics, it forces players to make difficult decisions on what cards to use for what.

Glory to Rome is an engine building game on 2 tiers.
How cards are placed on the player board on the Clientele side is essentially building an engine. Giving players extra or bonus actions.
Placing buildings is the other way of building an engine.
Together they give players quite a few options to explore.

The game's owner stated that certain cards can break the game, but that wasn't my experience when we played it. Upon looking at some cards after the game ended, I could see what he meant though.

Glory to Rome also asks players to watch each other and see what they do and in particular, what they put in to the pool. The pool is the best source of cards - provided it has what you need and you have the cards to get them.
​
Glory to Rome  is perhaps a little too long to play for what it is, but otherwise it's a fun game.

22nd December 2019

Sunday is here at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. 50 Fathoms is still on hiatus so for the final get together before Christmas we're playing board games.

The first game was 'Agatha Christie's Death On The Cards'.
Will the other players learn your darkest secrets? Will you catch the murderer? Or will you manage to get away with murder! Only the cards can decide in... Death On The Cards!

What's in a game?
Death On The Cards uses 3 different types of cards. Secret cards, game cards and the 'Murderer Escapes!' card , game cards are further divided into other cards:

• Secret cards: These contain the kinds of secret most people to keep errr secret? Things like being alcoholic and so on. One of these cards will be 'The Murderer' and another will be 'The Accomplice'.
• Detective cards: These represent different Agatha Christie detectives such as Poirot or Miss Marple. Detective cards are played in sets to reveal secret cards.
• Event cards: These cards allow players to perform actions such going through the discard pile and taking a card or stealing a secret card from another player.
• Devious cards: Devious cards for devious people! Devious cards are not played like other cards. Certain cards make players swap or pass cards from their hands to other players. When a player passes a devious card to another player, that's when a devious card is triggered and the recipient is the target of the cards effect (Hint; it's never a good effect!).
• 'Not So Fast' cards: These cards can be played at any time, they cancel the action of another player.
• 'Murder Escapes!' card: There's only one of these, when it appears... well you get the idea.

All of the cards a illustrated with nice little cartoons and all the text is written in an appropriate font. Giving the cards an authentic feel.

How's it play?
First there's setup, which is a little different depending on the number of players.

• 3 secret cards are randomly dealt to each player. Amongst these cards must be The Murderer card and depending on the number of players, The Accomplice card (Both card must not be dealt to the same player.). Players look at their cards but keep their secret card face-down in front of them. Any remaining secrets are put away and not used in the game.
• Deal 1 'Not So Fast' card to each player, shuffle the remaining 'Not so Fast' cards into the game cards.
• Shuffle the game cards and deal 5 to each player. These 5 cards plus the 'Not So Fast' card form each player's hand.
• The remaining game cards form the draw deck. The Murderer Escapes! is placed at the bottom of this deck.
• 3 cards are drawn from the deck and placed face-up in a row next to the draw deck. Whenever a card is drawn from the deck, it can be taken from these 3 cards. When a card is taken in this way, it is immediately replaced with a card from the deck.
• If the game has an accomplice, then all players closes their eyes and the murderer and accomplice reveal themselves to each other.

Now we're ready to play.

• The player who has 'The Murderer' secret card is attempting to get away with murder, they either want to deplete the draw deck, or paralysis the other players with 'social disgrace'.
• If the accomplice is in play, then their objective is to help the murderer. Just as any self-respecting accomplice should.
• All the other players are trying to reveal which secret card is 'The Murderer'. 

The active player can perform 1 of the following actions:

• Play an event card from their hand and do whatever it says on the card.
• Play a set of identical detective cards. Detective cards come in sets of 2 or 3. Different sets can do different things, but generally playing a set will force a player to turn one of their secret cards face-up.

After the active player has completed their action, they can choose to discard any number of cards from their hand, then they draw card to take their hand back up to 6.
Social disgrace
What's social disgrace? When a player has all of their secret cards turned face-up, all of their secrets have been revealed and they're disgraced.
What does this mean? It means that when they become the active player, all they can do is discard exactly 1 card and draw 1 card.
It is possible to come back from social disgrace as there some cards that allow secret cards to be turned back face-down.

Endgame
​How the game ends will depend on the player's role in the game.

• If the murderer secret card is revealed, then that player loses along with the accomplice. All other players win.
• There are 2 ways for the murderer to win.
• If all the other players (Not including an accomplice.) are socially disgraced, then the murder wins.
• If the last card of the draw deck (The 'Murderer Escapes!' card.) is revealed, the murder wins.
• In all circumstances that the murderer wins, the accomplice also wins. Regardless of whether the accomplice is socially disgraced or not.

Overall
'Death On The Cards' plays with 2-6 people and what's interesting is how the game changes depending on the number of players.

With 2 players, there's no secret to who's the murderer. The game is a war of attrition.

Now, for some maths (Hopefully my maths is correct.).

Let's look at it with 3 players.

• There are a total of 9 secret cards in plays and total of 18 cards are dealt to players. This means there are 43 cards in the draw deck (The draw deck has 61 card, not including 'The Murderer Escapes!').
• This means in the worse case scenario, there will be a maximum 43 actions to reveal all 9 secret cards, or a secret card will need to be revealed every 4.8 action.
• Additionally each player will have 14.3 turns before the game ends.

Now lets look at a 6 player game.

• There will be 18 secret cards and 25 cards in the draw deck.
• Therefore there will be a maximum of 25 actions before the game ends. So in the worst case scenario, 18 secret cards will need to be revealed in 25 actions, or 1 secret every 1.4 actions! A lot lower than with 3 players!
• Finally each player will only have 4.2 turns before the game end. 

This means it becomes easier for the murderer to get away with it in bigger game. Now I don't see this as a flaw, but it is definitely something that changes the dynamics of the game.

With 3 players for example, 'Death On The Cards' can be played as a straightforward card game.

With 6 players, it's much harder to capture the murderer. Players will need to form alliances and target suspicious players as quickly as possible. But then, this gives the murderer and accomplice opportunities to bluff, lie, double cross and sabotage their 'allies'. It becomes a lot more like a hidden role game.

Anyway, regardless of the mathematics, the game mechanics fit the theme very well. 'Death On The Cards' can learned quickly and plays quickly too . It's a great filler game and even though I'm not a fan of hidden role games, it's a lot of fun. 
It's definitely worth giving it a try.

10th December 2019

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

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

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

That sums Cockroach Poker pretty nicely.

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

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

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

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

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

Accepting the card:

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

Passing the card:

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

Endgame
Their are 2 ways the game can end.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

24th November 2019

Sunday at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues.

The next game was 'Codenames'.
I have it on good authority that spies, above all other things, really like having  codenames.
So it's a good thing that the game 'Codenames' is all about spies.
Actually, it's a team based card game about words, but I digress...

Whats in a game?
blah

• Word cards: Word cards are double sided and as the name suggests have a single word written on each side. There are 200 cards, so 400 words available.
• Key cards: Key cards are square cards used to identify which word cards belong to each faction (More on this below.). There are 40 cards and they can be used in any of 4 orientations, giving 160 combinations.
• 8 blue agent tiles: For the... blue team
• 8 red agent tiles:  Yes, for the red team.
• Double agent tile: A double sided double agent, blue on one side and red on the other.
• 7 innocent bystander tiles: These are white.
• Assassin tile: Black as the assassin's heart!
• Hourglass: An optional timer, used if player's feel the need to hurry the game or stress the players!

The word cards are standard cards without artwork. All the tiles are made of thick card and are well illustrated.

How's it play?
Codenames requires a bit of setup.

• All players must be split into 2 teams (Red and blue.) and each team should assign one player to be their 'spymaster'. Give the red & blue agent tile stacks to their respective spymasters.
• The word cards should be shuffled, then 25 cards should be drawn. Place these cards in the playing area in a 5x5 grid.
• Shuffle the key cards. 1 key card should be drawn only by the 2 spymasters. The key card will show the location of the blue and red agents, as well as innocent bystanders and 'the assassin'. Finally, the key card dictates which team goes first.
• Give the double agent tile to the starting team's spymaster, who should flip the tile to their colour and add it to their stack of tiles. Thus the starting team has 9 tiles instead of 8.

Now we're ready to go.

• The objective of Codenames is for the each team to find the words in the 5x5 grid that represent agents of their own colour. However only the spymasters know these locations. The spymasters try to pass on the locations to their team through the use of cryptic clues.
• The clues that a spymaster may give depend on the word cards available to them and is limited to a single word and a number.

For example:

• The blue spymaster may know that the word cards 'cat', 'pigeon' & 'ant' are all blue agents, so the spymaster might say, "Animal, three.". 'Animal' because they are all animals and that words links them all and 'three' because there are 3 of them.
• Once they've been given a clue, the rest of the blue team must try and guess which words in the grid that the clue applies to. To choose a card, one of the players must touch that card.
• If a blue word is selected, the blue spymaster covers that word card with a blue agent tile. Because they selected correctly, the blue team can continue selecting cards, up to 3 times (Which was the number the  spymaster gave.).
• If the blue team selects an innocent bystander card, then it is covered with an innocent bystander tile and the blue team's turn immediately ends.
• If the blue team selects a red agent, then the red spymaster covers the card with a red agent tile and the blue team's turn immediately ends.
• If the blue team selects 'the assassin', that word is covered with the assassin tile and the blue team immediately lose the game!
• A team has to make at least 1 selection, they do not need to make any more and can pass at that point. Thus, the blue team may make up to 3 selections, but after the first selection, they can pass on the rest.
• Furthermore, on a following turn, if the blue team correctly selects all the cards on for the clue for that turn, then they can attempt to select a card that they passed on in a previous turn.
• Once a team has finished with its selection, play progresses to the next team.

Overall
When describing Codenames I've not really explained the dilemma and challenge facing the spymaster players.

The example I used had 'cat', 'pigeon' & 'ant' as all being blue. But in reality, it's more likely that not all of them would be the same colour, 'pigeon' might be red. Now the blue spymaster could simply say, "Animal, two.". But then they run the risk that the team might select 'pigeon' instead of the other choices and if they select the wrong word first, it stops their turn straightaway!

So the spymaster has to select clues that don't draw their teammates to the wrong answer. This can be downright tricky.
Now the spymaster could play it safe and select, "Meow, one." for 'cat' and use 1 word clues. The problem with playing it safe though, is that it probably won't win you the game unless you're already ahead.  So doing 2 or 3 word clues can be a good way of getting ahead.

The same principle applies to the other team members. When the spymaster gives you a clue for 3 words, managing to find all of them grants the team a good advantage. But getting wrong can prove a bad thing.

It's a good implementation of a 'risk/reward' mechanic. A successful risk pays off and a unsuccessful risk penalises.

There's only one small drawback to Codenames and that is that it basically needs at least 4 players to play and ideally even numbers of players too.
The game goes up to 8 players, but I can't see a reason why team size should be limited to 4 (Other than it takes a longer to come to a consensus with bigger teams!).

Codenames is easy enough to learn to be a 'crossover' game and has a high replay value. It's probably a bit too long for a filler game, but makes an excellent party game. Particularly when with larger groups and/or family members. 

16th November 2019

Gaming night at 'Matakishi's' continues.

The final game of the night was 'Ringmaster: Welcome to the Big Top'.

​Step right up! Step right up! Come and see which player can creates the most magnificent circus.
Watch! As players become catastrophically confused by cunning card-plays of weirdness Gasp! As players are perilously perplexed by uncannily unpredictable game mechanics.

Yes Sir! All the fun of the circus!

What's in a game?
Ringmaster is a card and all it has and needs is a deck of cards.
All the cards are illustrated with nice and occasionally humorous pictures. Many of the cards are tongue-in-cheek.
Finally, the game comes with a nifty little draw string to to carry the game in, if you don't want to lug the box about. It's a cool little addition.

How's it play?
First, the deck is shuffled and 3 cards are dealt to each player, the remaining cards from a draw deck. A first player is then determined.
The active player draws a card from the deck and then plays 1 card. 

There are 4 types of card in the game:

• Stars: These cards are played in front of the active player. Star cards tend to give the player some sort of benefit every round.
• Attractions: These are also played in front of the active player.
• Events: When an event is played it is discarded, events can be considered  'one-offs'.
• Sideshows: These cards are played in another player's area and are generally detrimental to them.

Play then proceeds with the player to the left.

I can't really explain much about the rules, because players simply do what's written on the card they're playing.

Endgame
There are no endgame conditions in Ringmaster! OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the endgame is determined by cards that are played. This means that different players will most likely have different winning criteria.

This makes Ringmaster unpredictable and the game tends to end very suddenly and abruptly.

Overall
Ringmaster ticks the right boxes! Easy to learn, quick to play and fun.
As well as random ending conditions, there are cards that occasionally completely change the game, forcing all players to discard their entire hands or every card they've played etc.
Ringmaster can be random and chaotic, but retains enough strategy to still engage players.

If you've just spent the last 3 hours playing a monstrosity of a game that's made your brains dribble out of your ears. Then Ringmaster makes a great finisher for the evening.

16th November 2019

​Saturday night gaming at 'Matakishi's' continues.

The second game of the evening was 'High Society'.

Some people are just obsessed with reputation, luxury, wealth and prestige and will pay anything to elevate it. Well almost anything.
These are the trials and tribulations 'endured' by the aspiring wealthy and privileged, where image is everything.
​
What's in a game?
High Society has broadly speaking 2 types of card.

• Bidding decks: There are 5 of these, one for each player. Each deck consists of 11 cards, with values from 1,000 Francs to 25,000 Francs.
• Status cards: There 16 of these oversized cards. 10 luxury cards that score points(Valued from 1-10.), 3 prestige cards that double a player's final score and finally 3 disgrace cards that lower the player's score in different ways

The version that we played is themed to the 'roaring 20's' in Paris and has gorgeous Art Nouveau illustrations on the status cards.

How's it play?
First give each player a 11 card bidding deck. Then shuffle the status cards to form a deck and determine a starting player.

• Play begins by drawing a card from the status deck and placing it face-up in the centre of the playing area.
• What happens next depends on which type of status card is drawn. If a luxury or prestige card is drawn, then normal bidding begins with the starting player.
• Bidding works in a more or less familiar method: The starting player makes an opening bid by playing one or more cards from their card face-up. Play will then progress to the left, players that follow must raise the bid by playing a card (Or cards.) face-up of a higher value. When it comes to a player increasing their bid, they can only add​ to their bid, they cannot take back a card they already played (They cannot make change). Alternatively, a player may choose to pass, in this case any bidding cards they played are returned to their hand and they are out of the bidding. Play continues until all but one player has passed. The winning player discards all the cards they used in the bidding and collects the status card. Whoever wins the bidding is the starting player for the next status card.
• If a scandal card is drawn, the bidding is slightly different. Members of high society want to avoid scandal. So now players are bidding to avoid taking the card. Bidding works as normal, but the first player to pass collects the scandal card and also collects any bidding cards they played. All other players must discard all cards they used when bidding to avoid the scandal card.

And that's it for the rules.

Endgame
4 cards in the status are coloured green, they are the 3 prestige cards and one of the scandal cards.
When the 4th green card is drawn, the game ends immediately - there is no bidding on the 4th green.
Next is the game's sting in the tail. The player who has the least amount of money in their hand is eliminated from the endgame!
The remaining players total the value of their luxury cards and modify them by any prestige/scandal cards they have. Highest score wins.

Overall
There's a few clever little things to think about here.

Because a player can only add to their bid, players will be faced with tricky choices. If you really want a card a card, do you bid low hoping other players won't try and out bid you? Or do you start with a high bid hoping to discourage others and use less cards. For example: Using a 4 and 6 is worse than using a 10, even though they have the same value, in the first case you're using up 2 cards instead of 1 - and you can't bid if you don't have cards.
Also; there's nothing more infuriating then when you want to push up a bid by 1 or 2 and you've got nothing less than a 5 in your hand.

The endgame mechanic adds an extra level of unpredictability to the game. A game can last anywhere from 3 to 15 rounds. Players will know when there's a chance that the game will end because they'll see that 3 green cards have been played, but they won't know exactly when the end is coming. All of this can affect how you bid.

Finally, there's the player elimination in the endgame. The sting in the tail that constantly niggles and lingers in the back of every player's mind when they're playing.
It doesn't matter how well a player has done in the bidding if they're eliminated for having the least money. It is painful.

All in all, High Society is a quick to learn game that is quite fast to play and makes an excellent filler game. It's mechanics push players into making meaningful and tricky decisions. Other than constant stress, what's not to like?

10th November 2019

Gaming Sunday continues at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking.

Next up was; 'Legends Untold'. Legends Untold is a sort of hybrid card game RPG. The players take on the roles of nascent heroes thrust into adventure by circumstance.
These heroes will form a party and explore either caves or dungeons, whilst the role of 'GM' is played by various decks of cards.

There are 2 Legends Untold games,  'The Weeping Caves' & 'The Great Sewer'.

What's in a game?
Legends Untold packs a lot of cards into a relatively small box. These include:

• Hero cards: These oversized cards are the player characters. They each have 6 stats rated from 1 to 3 and the stats for a dagger (A basic weapon all PC's have.).
• Talent cards: Each PC has access to various talents, these are listed on cards. When talents are used, they become 'exhausted' and are 'tapped' (Turned sideways.). Talent cards are also used to track wounds, when a PC takes a wound, then a talent becomes 'drained' and is flipped over - irrespective of whether the talent is exhausted or not.
• Equipment cards: These cards include cards for weapons, outfits and kits. Players will accumulate these over time. Kit cards can be exhausted like talents.
• Scenario cards: The game has various scenarios and even a campaign. These are all detailed on the scenario cards.
• Location cards: Oversized cards that depict various locations. These cards contain information on lighting, exits, environmental effects and encounters.
• Environment cards: There are lots of environmental cards. Events, discoveries, barriers, foes, obstacles, booby traps and loot.
• Character tokens: These are used to show character status, such as poisoned, unconscious etc.
• More tokens: Tokens for environmental effects, searched areas, supplies etc.
• 4 dice: Normal 6 sided dice.
• Rule books: Normally I wouldn't bother mentioning rule books. But Legend Untold has a 'read this first' booklet which is 48 pages long and an actual rule book that is 60 pages long! There's some repetition between the 2 booklets, but even so, that's a lot of rules.

There are some nice illustrations on the cards, but mostly they pictures are quite small as many cards have a lot of text on them. The other tokens are of a reasonable quality, (Nothing to write home about, but enough I guess, to blog about!). 

How's it play?
​The setup for each game depends on which scenario card is used. The scenario will tell the players the number of card to put into each of the game's decks.

• Location deck. The scenario will list a starting location and any specific locations. Any remaining locations are randomly drawn and added to the location deck.
• Event deck: Event cards are randomly drawn to form the event deck. This deck is used to determine both encounters and the passage of time.
• Barrier deck: Created from the barrier cards.
• Obstacle deck: Created from the obstacle cards.
• Adventure deck: This is created by using foe, discovery, loot and booby trap cards.
• Player's decide on which characters they will be playing and take the relevant equipment and talent card.

And now the game is ready to start.
The game is divided into 4 phases.
Scouting phase

• The players decide who will be 'The Scout' and who will be 'The Guard', remaining players are in 'The Centre'.
• The party should decide whether they are 'sneaking' or not and which exit to take. Each exit is either 'light', 'dark' or 'ambient'. Sneaking takes more time than simply exploring.
• A card from the location deck is turned over.  The location card will have a 'feet' icon, this is the entrance to this location. The card will also have 3 numbers, one each for light, dark and ambient. The player designated as the scout makes a scouting test versus the relevant number. Sneaking adds +2 to this roll. The result of this roll will determine the party's 'readiness', the party will be either 'careless', 'bold' or 'alert'. Each status will have an impact on later actions.

Adventure phase

• When the party enters a new location, it will list what the party must deal with.
• Obstacle: A card from the obstacle deck is turned over. This will results in either a 'trial' or a 'trap'. A trial is a type of 'test', see below for more on tests and traps.
• Enemies: If the party must deal with foes, the party must turn over cards from the adventure deck until a foe card is drawn. When drawing cards from the adventure deck, any loot cards drawn before a foe is drawn is put to one side and will be the reward for defeating the foe. If a booby trap card is drawn before a foe card, it must be resolved.When a foe card is drawn, it must be defeated. See below for combat.
• Discovery: Discoveries are like non-combat encounters. Cards must be drawn from the adventure deck until a discovery card is drawn. If a loot card is drawn before a discovery card, it becomes the reward for successfully resolving the discovery. If a booby trap is drawn before a discovery card, it must be resolved. When a discovery card is drawn, it will take the form of a test, the party can choose to attempt the test or ignore the discovery.

When the adventure phase is completed, the game moves on to the next phase.
Exploration phase

• Each location card may have one or more 'search zones'.
• Barrier: Draw a card from the barrier deck and resolve the card drawn.
• Search: First the party must decide whether to do a 'quick' search or a 'cautious search. A cautious search take time. Draw 3 cards from the adventure deck when searching, any loot cards drawn are treasure that has been found. Any booby trap cards drawn must be resolved.

Rest phase

• The party automatically have a short rest after the exploration phase. This allows them to 'reset' talent and kit cards they used during scouting and adventure phases.
• The party may choose to rest longer in order to 'heal' drained talent cards. It takes 2 time to heal a wound. Negative condition such as fear and poison are also removed.
• If the location card has a campfire, then healing takes half the time.

That's it for what happens in a turn. But how it happens is detailed below.

Time and events
As explained above, the scenario will determine how big the event deck is. A common size is 6 cards.

• When the party uses up time, the top card from the event deck is discarded face-down into the discard pile.
• When the last card in the event deck is reached, it is turned over and the event is triggered. After the event has been resolved, the card is removed from play (You cannot get the same event twice!). The remaining cards in the discard pile becomes the new event deck. Thus the event deck will dwindle in size over time.
• Sometimes the party will get lucky and will gain time. When this happens, a card from the discard pile is returned (Still face-down.) to the top of the event deck. The game even provides a couple of tokens use if there is no discard pile.
• What happens if the event deck is totally depleted? If this happens; then the party can longer choose to take actions that will use up time. If something forces the party to use time, then a PC must exhaust or drain a talent.

Tests
Legends Untold has lots of different types of tests. Lots of them.

• Basic test: This type test will have a pass/fail result.
• Table test: This type of test will have varying degrees of success and failure.
• Staged test: These tests require multiple success to get an overall success.
• Party test: Yeah, as the name suggests, these test require all of the PCs to pass in order to succeed.

not only are there different types of tests. There are different rules for each time. Some can be tried more than once, others can only be tried once. Some tests can be avoided, some cannot. Some will give you a choice of tests that use different stats and will have different success/failure outcomes etc.
Like I said, lots of types of tests.
Traps
There are 2 types of trap. A normal trap which is encountered when drawing a card from the obstacles deck and a booby trap drawn from the adventure deck, either before combat or when searching.

• ​Trap: What happens when a trap is drawn from the obstacles deck will depend upon the party's readiness. If the party is careless, the trap is immediately triggered. If the party is bold, then a test must be made, on a success the trap is avoided, failure means the trap is triggered. If the party is alert, then the party can decide to back to or to make the test.
• Before combat: If a booby trap is drawn when looking for a foe in the adventure deck. Readiness once again makes the difference. If the party are careless, the trap is triggered. If the are bold or alert, the trap is avoided.
• When searching: When searching, the party must decide whether to do a 'quick search' or a 'careful search', a quick search costs no time, but a careful search costs 1 time. If the party are quick searching when a booby trap is drawn, it is automatically triggered, if they were searching carefully, the trap is avoided.

Combat
Combat in Legends Untold occurs over a number of stages.

• Engagement: The party rolls for surprise. Depending on the result, either the party, foes or no one is surprised. Sneaking modifies the the chances of success. If one side does win surprise, it gives a bonus for the first round of combat.
• Ranged combat: PCs may decide to engage in ranged combat if they have ranged attacks. During ranged combat, attacks alternate between the PCs and their enemies (Provided the enemies can launch ranged attacks) until all ranged attacks are resolved. Each ranged attack (For both PCs and foes.) is conducted by rolling against a chart which will give an outcome from a variety of results.
• Melee combat: Any remaining PCs will engage their enemies in melee. Unlike ranged attacks, enemies do not roll to attack in melee. The weapon charts used by PCs determine if an enemy wounds a PC or not.
• Morale: Under certain conditions, enemies will retreat from the fight. PCs can also choose to retreat during this stage of combat.

OK, there are more rules than this. But this is mostly what will occur all the time.

Endgame
Each scenario has its own victory or defeat criteria.
Generally, if all the PCs are knocked unconscious, it's a defeat.
​
Campaign
Legends Untold includes rules and components for a campaign. The campaign is about saving the refugees of an invasion
During the campaign, PCs will increase in level as it progresses. Additionally, the results of a scenario will have some impact on later scenarios in the campaign. This includes rating the players on how many refugees they managed to save.
It's sort of like a legacy game but without being asked to rip up any cards!

Overall
There's a lot to think about here. The game certainly packs a lot of stuff into a small box. But is it good stuff?

The exploration mechanics are quite good. Choosing to follow light or dark routes both have advantages and disadvantages. I like how the readiness rules interact with traps.

​I like the event deck and how it works. I like how as the event deck gets smaller, events become more common. It gives players the feeling that they are working against  the ticking clock.
Decisions regarding the spending of time become very important.

I like how talent cards are also used as hit points. It removes an extra element of bookkeeping from a game that already has a lot of things going on.
Losing an ability when wounded makes you feel weaker.
When PCs gain levels, they gain additional talent card, thus they also gain more hit points.

But perhaps there are too many character stats and thus tests related to them. More often than not, I found that stats became irrelevant, because across all the characters, they always tended to be someone who gave a +2 bonus.
Not only that, there are so many rules regarding tests, that the rule book is never closed.
I understand need for variety and the need to make all PC stats relevant. But tests could use some streamlining. In my mind more complexity does not equate to more depth.

Combat is equally clunky. It's quite confusing that ranged and melee combat are the same but also different. In melee , it's good that both attack and defence are resolved in a single roll. But why couldn't the same philosophy be applied to ranged combat? I know that the game needs to differentiate between PCs and foes who do and don't have ranged attacks. But I feel that combat needed more work, more testing and more streamlining.

Finally, the setting is quite uninteresting. It's pretty generic and uninspiring. Because of the I found it hard to engage with the game. Perhaps it as the steep learning curve. Or perhaps it's because I've played quite a lot of RPGs over the years

However, it's quite an ambitious game in its own way. I'm not willing to write it off without trying it another couple of tries.

10th November 2019

Sunday lunch time at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking. 50 Fathoms is still on hiatus, so board games it is.

We actually begin the day with a card game. A little 2 player 'Alice in Wonderland' themed game called 'Wonderland'. Yeah... Someone spend a while coming up with that.

What's in a game?
Wonderland is quite a minimalist game. There is a deck of cards for each player and each deck has only 7 cards in it. 7!
Despite the differing artwork, the 2 decks are identical.

• There is a deck for the 'Alice' player and a deck for 'The Red Queen' player.
• The cards in each deck are numbered from 1 to 7.
• Each card will display one or two symbols. These symbols are a 'vial of poison' and a 'cake'. They may be along the short edge or the long edge.

The art on these cards is obviously themed around the book and is quite nice.

The theme though, is entirely replaceable, it could as easily been about cats v dogs or elves v orcs or whatever v whatever.

How's it play?​
The purpose of Wonderland is to place cards down in the playing area (In a 3x3 grid.) to 'win' the rows and columns.

After deciding who will be playing who, each player should take their respective deck.

• Both players keep all 7 cards in their hand.
• Both players will play 3 cards face-down.
• One player should put their 3 cards in a row and the other in a column. This should look like a 'right-angle' shape. Between the row and the column there should be a imaginary 3x3 grid.
• Then taking turns, both players lay down their remaining 4 cards face-up. These can be played in the 'normal' orientation or upside-down.
• Once both players have finished playing their card, we go to the endgame.

Endgame
Rows and columns are 'won' by calculating the value of each players' cards in each row and each column, the player who has the highest value in each row and each column 'wins' it and takes that row or column's face-down card.
However, it's not just the value of the cards that matter here. The poison and the cake play a vital role here.

• If a card has a cake along one side and that side is is pointing at another adjacent card in the 3x3 grid. Then the value of that adjacent card is doubled.
• If a card has a vial of poison along one side and that side is pointing at another adjacent card in the 3x3 grid. Then the value of that adjacent card is reduced to zero. The card is still worth 0 if a cake is pointing at it, zero doubled is still zero.

The player who captures the most face-down cards, wins the game.

Overall
Wonderland is an interesting little game that seems to be about trying to out-predict the other player and ruthlessly take advantage of any error the other player may make.
Playing a card with a cake or poison symbol facing the right way can dramatically change the scores.
There's also an element of bluffing here, as each player essentially has to discard 3 cards and only play 4. This means it not possible to count cards as a player never knows what their opponent has put into their row or column.

Wonderland is a quick game to play and is small and portable.
I don't think it's a game that stands up to a lot of repeatedly play. But has a quick filler for 2 players it's OK. 

20th October 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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