22nd March 2021

Monday night gaming on Board Game Arena continues with the final game of the evening; Sushi Go.

Like sushi? Like conveyor belts? Then you'll like this.... probably!

Caveat: This was played online, but has also been played with the physical game, photos are from my copy.

What's in a game?
Sushi Go comprises of a single deck of 108 cards with 8 different types of cards. 

• Chopsticks: Chopstick cards allow a player to sacrifice their action in their current turn to have 2 actions in a later turn. Chopsticks are worth 0 points.
• Dumplings: This is a set of cards, the more dumpling cards a player collects, the more points they score at the end of the round
• Maki rolls: Whoever has the most make rolls at the end of the round scores, 2nd place scores half as many points. Maki roll cards each contain 1-3 maki rolls.
• Nigiri: There are egg, salmon and squid nigiri cards, they score 1, 2 or 3 points respectively.
• Puddings: These cards are only ever scored once, they don't score at the end of any of the rounds, instead they are retained between rounds and are scored at the end of the game (Being puddings obviously!). The player with the most puddings scores points, the player with the least or no puddings loses points! Everyone else in between gets 0.
• Sashimi: This is another set, collect 3 sashimi cards to score points, otherwise 0 points are scored.
• Tempura: Another set, collect 2 tempura  to score points.
• Wasabi: On its own, a wasabi card is worthless when played. However, if during a later turn a player puts down a nigiri card, it must go on the wasabi card and the nigiri card's value is then tripled.

There's not much that can be said about the components, it's a deck of standard quality cards.
The art is clear, distinct and colourful with appropriately themed cheerful faces on all the foods.
My copy came in a little steel tin.
The only component that the game is lacking are scoring counters, as it stands, scores at the end of each round need to be recorded somehow on scrap paper or a phone or something. On the other hand, adding scoring tokens would increase the game's size, making it less of a neat compact little package, so your mileage may vary.

How's it play?
Set up
Shuffle and deal a hand of cards face-down to each player, the hand size depends on the number of players, the remaining cards form a draw deck for later rounds, then the game is ready to begin.

On to play

• Each player looks at their hand and plays one card face-down in front of them. Then they pass the remaining cards, still face-down, to their left (Or possibly right, if using optional rules.).
• Then, simultaneously, all players reveal their chosen card.
• All players pick up the cards passed to them, a new turn starts and the two steps above are repeated.
• Play continues until all cards have been played. Then, except for the pudding cards, all cards are scored. The scored cards are all discarded and not shuffled into the draw deck.
• A new round begins, new hands are dealt to the players and the steps above are repeated.
• Play continues for a total of 3 rounds.

Endgame
Once the 3rd round is over and scored, the puddings are scored.
Scores are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
As you can see from the short length of this blog post, Sushi Go's rules are simple, accessible and easy to learn. The game's depth comes not from rules complexity but from decisions available to each player, which is great game design in my opinion.
The game also fits the theme of having food going round on a conveyor belt remarkably well.

Sushi Go constantly forces players to make decisions and some of these decisions will be gambles, based on the hope that another right card will come around further along the game.
Players will also get the right card at the right time on random occasion, but this isn't perceived as a no-brainer, they're seen as spots of good luck to be exploited.
​
Canny players will try to memorise hands that get passed along, they might also spend time looking at what cards others have put down, trying to predict their decisions. If 2 players look like they're trying to collect the same set of cards, then they're going to be a premium and those players aren't going to pass those cards on.
Then there's puddings, the wrinkle in the rules that produces the pudding war of escalation that forces players to think about what cards might be played in the future rounds and play cards just to avoid losing points!

It makes Sushi Go a blend of calculation and unpredictability. There is no winning strategy, players must adapt to not only the cards dealt to all players but other player's strategies

Sushi Go comes in compact package, is easy to learn, quick to set up and play and enjoyable experience. A great filler game.

14th March 2020

It's a Sunday night, I'm on my PC in my living, logged on to Zoom and the Tabletopia website.

In Paleo each player controls a tribe of cavemen and is a cooperative card about life & times in a prehistoric times. According to Paleo, our caveman ancestors were pretty obsessed with woolly mammoths, either chasing or running away from them!

Caveat: Paleo was played virtually on the Tabletopia website, so I cannot attest to the quality or lack of regarding the components.

What's in a game?
Paleo is a card game with a lot of different types of cards, the majority are encounter cards (Explained Below) but not all cards and tokens are used in every game.
Paleo uses a base set of encounter cards and also employs a module system which determines which other sets of cards are used, each game uses 2 modules from a selection of 10, this will also affect the games difficulty. The rules suggest combinations to use for easier and harder games ranging from 1 to 7 in difficulty. Ultimately you can even choose your own set ups. Modules can add a narrative flavour to the game as most modules are themed.

• Encounter cards: As the name suggests these are cards that a player's tribe will encounter during a day, there are several different types of encounter cards and when turned over they detail the encounter that tribe has. Each different type of encounter card can be identified by it's own unique illustration, such as a forest on forest cards, a river on river cards and so on. Additionally, there may be extra elements to the illustration, such as a forest containing a woolly mammoth indicating that it is like a mammoth will be encountered. Encounter cards mostly consist of  but are not limited to forest, river & mountain cards and also include:
  Forest: When a forest card is turned over, it is likely (But no guaranteed.) that the tribe will encounter wood & food.
  River: It is likely that players will encounter food & pelts on river cards.
  Mountain: Stone & pelts are mostly encountered on mountain cards.
  Campfire: A campfire will allow a combination of the following actions, crafting, increasing the tribe's size, acquiring a dream card, making a discovery.
  Dreams: These are always beneficial, they sometimes replicate actions on other cards or have their own special action, all are unique.
  Hazard: These red cards always represents danger, be they wild animals, environmental problems or calamities. They can pose a significant threat to members of a tribe
• People cards: These cards form a player's tribe, they each have a number of hearts representing how damage they can take before dying, most also have 1 skill, strength (For fighting/hunting mostly.), awareness (Important to being able to deal with danger.) and skill (Used for crafting). Some come with tokens/tools as well. 
• Discovery cards: The tribes will need to make discoveries in order to succeed, some discoveries are specific to certain modules. These range from learning how to create new types of tools to creating prehistoric art.
• Mission cards: Each module has its own mission card, thus 2 are used in every game, they represent extra requirements that must be met during the night phase.
• Mystery cards: There are 22 of these, which cards are used is determined by which modules are used.
• Meeples: There are 3 types of meeples in the game and they represent the game's resources, food, wood and stone. Food is vital for your tribe, wood and stone are used for crafting.
• Tokens: They represent tools or resources to which a player's tribe has access, There are 3 basic tools that players are always available to craft, torches with confer awareness, flint grants skill and a spear increases strength. Other tokens become available when players make discoveries, they include items that may grant a combination of abilities or will have other affects. Additionally, some tokens are discarded when used and others stay in play permanently.
• Base camp board: This board has spaces for three different decks. the people deck, dreams deck and discovery deck.
• Night board: This used during the night face, it contains the victory and defeat tracks, it also has spots for the mystery and mission cards.
• Discard board: Cards are discarded either face-up or face-down and they are discarded on to this board.
• Discovery rack: This is where revealed discoveries go, I think the physical component is actually a rack that you construct
• Graveyard: Some cards are discarded out of the game entirely, this is where they are put. This is also a thing that is constructed if you have the actual game.
• Victory tokens: There are 5 victory tokens, when all placed together they form a caveman painting and represent winning
• Defeat tokens: 5 skull tokens are used to track defeat, when all 5 are placed on the night board, the players collectively lose.
• Dice: These are custom dice, we didn't use them as some modules don't require them. I believe they determine resources randomly for certain cards/encounters

​I've never seen the physical components other than in photos so can't comment on their quality, however the game's artwork is cheerful and colourful.

Setup

• First choose the modules you will be using. This will determine which mystery, mission & discovery cards are used.
• Put out the people deck & dream deck face-down
• Shuffle the base encounter cards with the modules' encounter cards, then deal the entire deck out to the players as evenly as possible. Each player has their own encounter deck.
• Each player draws 2 cards from the people deck, this represents their tribe, they may also acquire tokens, depending on what people they drew.
• Collectively, the players start with 5 food.

That's it for the important parts of setup.

How's it play?
Paleo is played over any number of rounds, each round has a day phase and a night phase. The vast majority of gameplay occurs during the day phase, the night phase is mostly for managing what happened during the previous phase.

Day phase
What actions a player can under take will depend on the situation and what encounters they errr.... encounter!

• Sleep: Before choosing an encounter a player may elect to end their day and send their tribe to sleep instead, this means not drawing 3 cards from their encounter deck but discarding the remaining deck face-down on to the discard board. If a player only has hazard cards left, they may want to do this.
  If a player has no more cards left, their tribe must go to sleep.
  When a tribes goes to sleep, that player no longer participates in the remaining day phase and their tribe cannot help other tribes.
• Choose an encounter: Each player draws the top 3 cards from their encounter deck and puts them in a row face-down. Then without looking at them, they choose 1 to encounter and return the other 2 to their encounter deck in any order they see fit.
  Since different types of encounter cards have different backs, players will have an idea of what kind of encounter they will have, but not the exact type. For example, if a player chooses a card with a forest back, it's like (But not guaranteed.) that they'll find food or wood.
  A player's encounter deck also represents the time they have left during the day (More is explained on this below.).
  Before choosing this card, all the players will most likely want to have a discussion about what cards everybody should choose.
• Reveal encounter cards: All players simultaneously turn over their cards, now each player must deal with their encounter.
• Complete encounter: Most encounter cards will have 2 or 3 manners in which a encounter can be completed, all a player has to do is meet the conditions one of these encounters demands and then they will earn it's reward.
  For example, if you reveal a wood card, you may discard 1 card from you encounter deck to gain 1 wood OR discard 2 cards to gain 3 wood.
  Encounters can have varied requirements, a player might need to have a certain strength to fight an animal for example or certain tools
• Ignore: Generally a player can choose to (Or may have to.) ignore a card, unless the card is a danger (See below.)!
• Help: If a card shows an illustration of shaking hands, then that player can choose to help another player and ignore their own card, allowing them to lend the other player their abilities and tools. This option appears on many cards and is a critical strategy to winning the game.
• Danger: Some cards are dangerous, they cannot be ignored and the action must be completed, if the player cannot complete it, then typically their tribe takes damage. All hazard cards are dangerous and some innocent looking encounters will also place a tribe in danger.
• Discard: When a encounter is either completed or ignored it is discarded face-up on the discard board.
  Some cards that are completed must be discarded to the graveyard, they are now permanently out of this game.
  Frequently players will be required to discard cards from the top of their encounter deck, mostly to complete actions. They are discarded face-down on to the discard board.
  Any hazard cards discarded this way inflict damage on the player's tribe, so it's not necessarily a good way to try and avoid them.
• Discovery: Some encounters allow the player to draw a card from the discovery deck and put it on to the discovery rack.
  Frequently a discovery makes a new type of tool available to be crafted by the tribes. Some discoveries can be completed to gain a victory token.
• Craft: Craft encounters give the player the opportunity to craft 1 or 2 tools, this usually requires specific types of resources and crafting ability. 
• Collect people card: Some encounters allow people to be recruited to a tribe.
• Mystery: When completed, the player turned over a card on the mystery deck and has that encounter, which can be beneficial or negative.
• Collect rewards: When an encounter is completed, they player's tribe will gain a reward, usually this is contextual to the card, often its a basic resource - food, wood or stone, sometimes it's a tool. If player's are lucky it might be a victory token.
• Damage: Dangers & hazard cards in particular can inflict damage, this is distributed to people cards as they player sees fit. 
• Death: If a people card loses all it's health, it is discarded to the graveyard and a skull is added to the night board.

Once all encounters have been dealt with one way or another, then players once more draw 3 cards from their encounter deck and choose another encounter to have.
Play continues during the day phase until all player tribes have gone to sleep, the day phase is now over and the night phase commences.

Night phase
The night phase is much shorter than the day.
All tribes must collectively discard an amount of food equal to the number of people cards in all their tribes. If they cannot manage this, a skull is added to the night board.
Furthermore they must also meet the conditions required on the 2 module specific missions. Each one they fail adds another skull to the night board.
Once the night phase is concluded, all the cards on the discard board are put into a single deck, shuffled and dealt out to the players again, then the next day phase begins.

Endgame
Play continues until the players have accumulated all 5 victory tokens, in which case they immediately all win.
If 5 skull tokens are placed on to the night board, then the players immediately lose.
​Some mystery cards may contain alternate ways to win the game.

Overall
First thing I'm going to talk about are 2 interlinked mechanics.

The exploration mechanic of drawing 3 face-down cards and choosing one from the card back is excellent. It feels a bit like exploring, does a player choose to go to the forest or the mountains? They'll have a pretty good idea what to expect but it's not guaranteed. They most likely will get the wood or stone or whatever they're looking for but they might encounter a rockfall or a dangerous animal.
Additionally, players will also get an idea of what's coming in future turns
It's a great mechanic.

The other equally great mechanic is how each player's own deck also represents their tribe's time & energy, completing encounters frequently forces a player to discard 1 or 2 cards from their deck, so when it's depleted - so is the tribe for the day. When the game begins on day 1, players will have 15 cards, so it's possible to burn through a deck very quickly, why is that significant?
Essentially the encounter deck is another resource that needs to be managed. In most games, my instinct would be to gather as much food/wood/stone/resource as possible but in Paleo you sometimes have to fight that urge. You have to ask the question, what resource do I really need?
For example; near the end of a day I had 3 cards left, 2 in my deck and a forest encounter. Turning the card over, I had the option to discard 2 cards for 3 wood, 1 card for one wood or help another tribe. The others didn't need help from me, so I was free to collect wood but collecting 3 wood would send my tribe to bed. Because we knew the top 2 cards on everyone's deck, I knew that another player potentially had a mammoth hunt coming and would probably need help. We didn't need the wood for now so I chose to ignore my card and I also ignored my other 2 encounter cards just so my tribe would be around for 3 more turns to help other tribes if needed. Realising this gave me an appreciation of the game's subtleties.

As well as managing encounters, players will need to ensure they generate enough resources to pass the night as well manage discoveries and crafting.
Creating a few tools gives the game a good sense of progress as it increases the capabilities of a tribe significantly. You can almost feel a the game transition from scrabbling to survive encounters to being able to go on mammoth hunts, it's quite gratifying to complete encounters that had to be ignored earlier in the game.

Like all good games, collectively there were always meaningful decisions to make. Before long we learnt that we needed to communication and coordinate on which encounter cards to keep and when they were then revealed we frequently had to coordinate on which encounters to complete, rarely did all players manage to individually complete their encounters.
For example; if all players for some reason chose mammoth hunt encounters, it would be most likely that all bar one would be ignored. Mammoth hunts generally required a lot of strength thus cooperation but also gave significant rewards, including on occasion victory tokens. Coordination is vital and it feels like players coordinating.

As a result I liked Paleo quite a lot, it's a game I'd happily play again.

27th October 2020

Gaming night at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues in what would the last game of the last meetup before Lockdown 2 came into effect.

The third and final game of the evening was 'Skulls of Sedlec', in what seems to be a game about digging up skulls and then errr... proudly displaying them in a pile for all to see?

Skulls of Sedlec is a microgame that comes from microgame publisher Button Shy who appear to specialise in creating games with 18 cards.
Their games are hand crafted and they aim to release 1 a month.

What's in a game?
As is befitting the name microgame, Skulls of Sedlec is small enough to fit in your pocket. 

• ​Cards: Skulls of Sedlec consists of 18 cards and that's it! Each card displays 2 'layers' of skulls (one in the top half and the other in the bottom.) and each skull is from 1 of 5 'classes'.
• Plastic wallet: The game fits into this tiny wallet, it's not strictly a game component, but it's cool enough to be worth mentioning.

The cards has nice and colourful skulls! There's not more I can really add, that's it - 18 cards.
The wallet is of course a bit of a gimmick, but it's a nice addition and I like it.

How's it play?
Set up

• Shuffle the cards and place them into 6 face-down stacks of 3 cards each, arranged in a 3x2 grid.
• There are no more steps, I just added this to justify putting the set up into bullet-point format!

The objective of ​Skulls of Sedlec is to create a pyramid shaped layout of cards. Points are scored depending on how cards are placed in relation to other cards.
The size of the pyramid depends on the number of players but always has 3 layers of cards and thus 6 layers of skulls. Layers of cards are 'offset' (Like bricks in a wall.), this is important when calculating which cards are 'adjacent' to other cards.


On to playing
When 'building' a pyramid, players must start at the bottom and work up, thus there must be at least 2 cards in a layer before a card can be placed on the layer above.

In their turn, a player can perform 1 of 3 actions.

• Dig: The active player can turn over 2 face-down cards, then they take 1 of the 2 into their hand.
• Take card: The active player can take 1 face-up card (If face-up cards are available.) into their hand.
• Play: The active player can play a card from their card into their pyramid. There's a maximum hand size of 2, so if a player has two cards in their hand at the start of their turn, they must play a card.

​​Endgame
Play continues until all cards have been taken and played into pyramids.
Then pyramids are scored, there are 5 class of skull and thus 5 ways to score points.

• Peasant: Each 'peasant' skull in the pyramid scores a point.
• ​Royalty: A 'royal' skull scores a point for each other royal and peasant skull in a layer below it. I guess they like to lord it over other cards.
• Priest: Each layer that has a priest skull score 2 points, additional priest cards in the same layer score 0. Remember there's 6 layers in a pyramid.
• Rogue: A 'rogue' skull scores 2 point for each priest card it is adjacent to. Typically, the church always has all the wealth.
• Lover: When a 'lover' is adjacent to another 'lover' card, they score 3 points each (Collectively scoring 6.), 'lover's' can only be scored once. If a 'lover' is adjacent to 2 other 'lover' cards No extra points are scored. Infidelity's worth nothing in this game!

Points are tallied.
Highest score wins.

Overall

Simple to learn, but lots to think about. Skulls of Sedlec packs a some solid gameplay into a tiny package.

I really like that the face-down stacks of cards visually represent a graveyard and 'digging' turns them over. It's a clever touch and good example of maximising what's available in a game. Less can be more.

The 2 card hand limit is a great mechanic too: It gives players enough choice  to give them tricky decisions, but it stops players from hording cards - making their decisions easier.
Every card can potentially score points, so every decision when playing a card is meaningful and you really can't ask for more from a game in my opinion.

Skulls of Sedlec is a 2 or 3 player game. It's worth noting that that there's an expansion that takes the player count to 4, adds a new class and increases the deck size up to a heady 24 cards! 

A good little microgame that is a perfect filler with some depth. One I'd like to own and that's not just because it comes in a neat wallet (Although it does add to the appeal.).
​
​I'm just glad that the publisher hasn't started numbering their wallet games, that would be too hard on my real wallet!

6th October 2020

For the first time in nearly 7 months we're in Woking at 'The Sovereigns'. The last we were here was the 17th March!

The Woking Gaming Club isn't really back up-and-running yet, but a few of us have raised our heads above the parapets to wave the flag and of course; play some games.

The first game of the night was 'Medium', a light word-association card game.

What's in a game?

• ​Medium cards; there are 270 of these, each card displays a single word, written normally and upside down so two people can easily read them at the same time.
• Crystal ball cards; there are 3 of these, each one has an illustration of a crystal ball.
• Scoring tokens; there are 3 types of double sided scoring token, scoring 5-6, 3-4 or 1-2 points. On the other side they are numbered 1, 2 or 3.

That's it for the components, the quality is perfectly acceptable and the small amount of art used in the game is also OK.

How's it play?
Before play begins the deck must be created, the number of cards used depends on the number of players. The deck is shuffled and the 3 crystal ball cards are shuffled into the bottom third of this deck.
6 cards are then deal to each player.
Finally, the scoring tokens are laid out with the scores face down and the 1, 2 and 3 numbers displayed.

• Medium is both a competitive and cooperative game, this means that the active player will partner up with the player to their left.
• The active player and their partner in turn each play a single card facing each other. Thus there will be 2 words displayed. 
• Now both players try to think of a common word between the 2 displayed words (It can't be a word on the two cards.). When they're both ready, they both count down 3... 2... 1... and both say their word simultaneously.
• If the 2 words match; then a number 1 token (Worth 5-6 points.) is placed between the 2 players and play progresses to the next player.
• If the 2 words don't match; then the 2 players must guess again. Except this time they must try and find a common word between the 2 different words they just spoke, not the words on the cards, furthermore they can't use the words on the cards or any previously spoken words as the common word. If the 2nd guess succeeds, then a number 2 token (Scoring 3-4 points.) is taken. If they failed again, they get a 3rd and final attempt using the last 2 words they spoke, the same rules above still apply. Success means a token scoring 1-2 points is taken, failing a 3rd time means they score 0 points.
• Play progresses until all players have been the active player, then all players draw cards to refill their hands.

Endgame
Play continues until the 3rd crystal ball card is drawn, which triggers the endgame. The game then continues until the current round is completed and all players have had an equal number of turns.

Each player then tallies up the scores from the tokens to their left and right​, highest score wins!

Overall
There's not much to say. As you can see from above, Medium is a light game that may appeal to casual players, it is a game that can be quickly learnt.

It's not a deep game either, random chance can play a part and sometimes you'll get 2 words that have no obvious commonality. There is some room for strategy in Medium though. The player that goes 2nd will have the opportunity to play a hopefully suitable second word.

We didn't play the game extensively, but it seemed if a common word wasn't guessed first time, the 2nd and 3rd guesses weren't going to be any better.

It's a strangely stressful game, I think it's because your guess will also affect your partner's score.
Conversely; when it's not your time, observing how other people play is fun.

One potential issue was the scoring, each 'level' of scoring has a 1-point variation in its score and some people are not fond of it. We house ruled it and used the other side of the tokens for scoring, a successful first guess would get 3 points, down to 1 for a successful 3rd guess.

If you like somewhat stressful word-association games, then you might like this. Easy to learn and play, it's a reasonable little filler game.

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.