30th August 2022

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

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

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

30th August 2022

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

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

What's in a game?

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

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

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

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

How's it play?
Setup

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

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

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

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

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

21st August 2022

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

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

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

​What's in a game?

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

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

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

How's it play?
Setup

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

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

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

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

Points are tallied, lowest score wins!

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

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

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

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

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

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

20th August 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How's it play?
Set up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

24th July 2022

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

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

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

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

23rd June 2022

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

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

What's in a game?

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

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

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

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

How's it play?
Set up

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

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

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

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

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

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14th June 2022

It's a Tuesday and we're with the Woking Board Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for some gaming entertainment.

​I always thought a good leader leads by example and doesn't hide? On the other hand most leaders don't have to contend with 4 feuding factions and the undead!
Hidden leaders is a fantasy themed sort of hidden role (Leader!) game with a dash of social deduction.

How's it play?

• ​Hidden Leaders: Shuffle the leader cards and deal 1 face-down to each player, these should be kept secret until the game end.
• Game board: Put out the following and carry out the following.
  • Buried Emperor: Put the 'Buried Emperor' face-up in the graveyard spot adjacent it's symbol.
    All other cards placed in the graveyard must be face-up.
  • Hero cards: Shuffle the hero cards into a face down deck and place it adjacent to the harbour icon.
    Draw one card for each of the 3 tavern spaces and place them face-up adjacent to the tavern icons.
  • Meeples: Put the meeples on to their starting spot - the '4' space.
  • Players: Now deal 5 hero cards to each player. Each player must then play a hero card 'face-down' into their personal playing area.
  • Wilderness: Now each player must discard 1 card to the wilderness spot. This means each player has a hand of 3 cards.
    All cards discarded into the wilderness spot are always discarded face-down.
  • First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
Hidden leaders is a game primarily about manipulating the 2 meeples on the board because their relative positioning at the game end will determine which faction wins the game and by extension which player wins.
This done by recruiting i.e. playing hero cards into your personal playing to create your own band of heroes.

There are 4 factions.
Black: Undead.
Blue: The Water Folk.
Green: The Hill Tribe.
​Red: The Imperial Army.

The game uses usual a traditional turn structure with the active player completing their action before play progresses to the player to their left.
During the active player's turn, the following must occur.

• Play or discard: The active player must choose 1 of the 2 following actions.
  Play card: The active plays a card from their hand into their personal playing where it will stay (Unless another actions changes this.) and resolves the action on the bottom of the card which typically involves moving the 1 or 2 meeples around. There a great variety of actions that involve moving meeples, taking or putting cards into the graveyard etc and sometimes card will both a bit of both.
  Usually, cards played this way are played face-up.
  Discard hand: If a player does not want to play any card, they must discard their entire hand and thus will have 0 cards in hand!
• Draw cards: The active player now draws cards to get their hand size up to 4. Thus if they played a hero card, they will draw 2 new hero cards. If they discarded their hand, they will draw 4 cards.
  Cards can be drawn from the tavern spots or blindly from the harbour deck as the active player sees fit.
• Discard: Now that the active player has 4 card, they must discard 1 to the wilderness discard pile. Thus, players should always have 3 cards in their hand at the end of their turn.
• Next player: The player to the left now becomes the active player.

Endgame
The game continues until any player has put 5-8 face-up hero cards into play (Dependant upon player count.), face-down heroes do not count for the purpose of triggering the game end. When this occurs, the current turn is the last turn and we go to declaring a winner.

First, the victorious faction must be determined, each one has their own winning criteria based on the positioning of the 2 meeples on the track.
Black (Undead.) wins if both meeples are in the black area of the track, that is on spaces 9-12. This is regardless of the positioning of the meeples relative to each other.
Blue (Water folk.) win if both meeples are on the same or an adjacent space on the track - provided of course they are both not in the black spaces.
Red (Empire.) wins if the red meeple is 2+ spaces further along the track than the green meeple, ​so long as both meeples are not in the black area.
Green (Tribe.) wins conversely, if the green meeples is 2+ spaces further along the track than the red meeple, again, 

Next; players reveal their hidden leader cards and face-down hero cards.
The player whose leader is aligned to the winning faction, wins!
It's quite likely that more than player will have a leader aligned to the winning faction. If this is the case, then the player with the most hero cards aligned to the winning faction wins.

Overall
The first thing to mention is the game's asymmetrical winning criteria, it's something I've not seen elsewhere and is key to Hidden Leaders' appeal and informs all of the gameplay and tactics mentioned below.

The objective is pretty straightforward in Hidden Leaders. Players will not only be trying to manipulate the meeples to their own advantage but also trying to deduce the  motives of their opponents from their actions. This will allow players to try and anticipate their opponent's actions to their own advantage.

E.g., a player moves the red meeple up closer to green one which is ahead, is it because they want to bring them together to want the red meeple to overtake the green or do they want to put the meeple in the black area.
In this example, one single move can work towards the winning conditions of 3 factions.

Interestingly, when cards are discarded to the wilderness, it's face-down so others can't try and see which cards are essentially worthless to the discarding player. Further more, players will at least 1 face-down hero.
All of this is compounded by each leader being aligned to 2 factions so it can be hard to try and guess which faction they're supporting.
It's a great use of 'imperfect knowledge' mechanics that will keep players on their toes.

Hidden Leaders is a fairly easy to learn rules-light game, it mixes this accessibility with a higher level of play and depth of complexity that comes from trying to anticipate the actions of opponents that will make players think.
So, while theoretically the game has a reasonably quick play time, some players will spend a lot of time analysing their options and next move. In short; the analysis paralysis can be strong with this one and it seemed to take longer than expected. But that can be down to the players.
It should also be noted that whilst Hidden Leaders doesn't really have direct interaction between players, it definitely has a bit 'take that' mechanics. It's not too harsh to be fair but it's there and I for some players this is a no-no.
Having said all of that, I found the gameplay a little slow, it felt like 1 card-play/actions wasn't quite satisfying enough and it felt like there was a bit too much downtime between turns, although we did play with a player count at the higher end.

Otherwise I can't fault Hidden Leaders. If card games fairly heavy on deductive reasoning and trying to gauge the motives of other players are something you like, you'll probably find this engaging and enjoyable. 

24th May 2022

It's a Tuesday and we're with the Woking Gaming Club in The Sovereigns.

Fly as free as a err flying pirate? Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is set in a world of fantastical aerial ships, anthropomorphic heroes and adventurous voyages to find loot and lost treasure.

What's in a game?

• Board: The board for Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is double-sided.
  One side has the 'base' game and depicts a cheerful oceanic panorama of land and flying islands in a colourful palette.
  The other side features the same landscape but lashed by heavy rains and troubled by storms. This side is the more 'antagonistic' side.
  Initiative track: This track has space for 6 cards and also tracks initiative throughout the game's day and night phases.
  Loot spaces: There are 6 spaces for 'loot' and are marked day 1 through to day 6. Each space represents a day of voyaging. Each of the game's 3 voyages lasts 4, 5 or 6 days respectively.
  Reputation tracker: There are 6 spaces here (One for each player.) and it runs from left to right, with the rightmost player having the highest reputation. Beneath each space is a gold value and on the left end is a '-2' gold symbol, while on the right end is a '+2' symbol.
  Loot tile spaces: Not to be confused with loot tokens or loot spaces. These provide special rules when loot tokens are taken and also serve as spaces to place 1 each of the game's 7 loot tiles.
  The actions tend to activate either at dusk or the voyage's end.
• Player cards: There are identical sets of 40 cards in each player colour that depict 40 different pirates and are numbered 1-40 in the top left corner. They also display a name for each character.
  At the bottom it lists the ability of each card in the game's 3 phases.
  Bold, brash and cartoony art is used to illustrate the character cards.
• Reputation tokens: There is one of these bulky octagonal reputation tokens in each player colour.
• Scoring dials: There are 2 dials on each of these and again, they come in 6 player colours.
• Graveyard tile: There is 1 each of these tiles for each player and they display a wrecked ship.
• Loot tiles: These can be used to provide alternate rules for when a loot token is taken.
• Loot tokens: Now I'm a pretty big fan of wooden components but even so, these plastic tokens are very chunky and look very cool - even if they look chewy sweets in colourful wrappers!
  They represent the game's 7 different types of loot; chest, barrel, relic, hook, saber, amulet and map. When a loot token is taken, it will activate it's special rule as per the board or loot tiles in play.
• Bag: Used in conjunction with the loot tokens to blindly draw them.
• Doubloons: Gold doubloons are the game's currency. These tokens are made of card and have different shapes dependant on denomination.

Component quality is solid throughout, cards, tokens and tiles are well constructed but the chunky loot tokens really stand out, even if I have to resist the urge to try and unwrap and eat them.

Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest makes use of excellent use of bright, eye-catching, cartoony art presenting a larger than life setting and characters.

About a dozen icons are used throughout the game, they are all fairly clear and easily understood.

How's it play?
Setup

• Board: Put out the board.
  Reputation track: Take all 6 reputation tokens (Regardless of the number of players.) and randomly put them on the track to determine starting order of initiative. Each player should get 7-12 gold according to their starting position on the track.
  Optional: Players can choose to use the default loot rules on the board or use the loot tiles for a variant on these rules.
• Loot: Put all the loot tokens into the bag and blindly draw loot tokens for each day of the current journey, the number of tokens drawn for each day should equal the number of players.
• Players: Give each player the following in their colour.
  Character deck: This 40 card deck should not be shuffled and instead be in numerical order going from 1-40.
  Scoring dial: Should be set to 0.
  Graveyard: Will come into play later on.

That's pretty much setup done.

On to play
Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is played over 3 'voyages' which have a length of 4, 5 and 6 days. For each day, a player will put a character card into play and this is done secretly.
​Thus over all 3 voyages each player will use 15 character.

• Voyage start: I said earlier that no one should shuffle their character decks. Well now, one player should shuffle their deck, draw 6 cards and show them to all other players.
  Every other player should now take those 6 cards out their deck and put them into their hand.
  This means that all players will have identical hands of 6 cards.
• Play card: Each player now chooses and plays a character card from their hand and plays it face-down.
• Reveal cards: Once all players have put a card down, they are all simultaneously revealed.
  Cards are then placed on to the initiative tracker in numerical order with the lowest value going on the left (And going first!) all they way to the highest on the furthest right (Who goes last.). Ties are resolved according to the reputation tracker.
• Phases: The following 3 phases are played which will trigger various actions which gain or lose players gold, reputation or even character cards.
  • Day: In initiative order (With the lowest value characters going first.) activate each character card's 'day' ability (Provided the character has one.).
  • Dusk: Now in reverse initiative order, each player should remove their character from the initiative tracker and places it in their playing area, if the character has a dusk ability it should now be activated and then they take a loot token from that day's space. If the token chosen activates a rule with a dusk ability, it is also immediately resolved.
    If for any reason a player's character has been sent to the graveyard, the controlling player does not collect the card or a loot token.
  • Night: Players now activate any night abilities on the cards they've placed in their personal playing areas in any order they choose.
    ​Once this is done all cards in a player's personal area are discarded to their graveyard.
    Any loot tokens a player has acquired stays in their playing area until the end of the voyage.
• Next day: Once all night actions have been resolved, play moves on to the next day and any unclaimed loot tokens from the previous day are returned to the bag.
  Each player now puts another character face-down into their area and the 3 phases are resolved again.
• Voyage's end: When the last day in a voyage has ended and night actions for that day have been resolved, then end of voyage actions are resolved. Typically these will be actions related to loot tokens and loot rules, although there are character cards with abilities to be resolved now too.
  Gold: However much gold a player has accumulated on this voyage is now added to their scoring dial and is considered 'banked', this means that if a player loses gold for any reason later in the game, it does not come off of the dial.
  Tokens: All coin tokens are returned to the supply and all loot tokens put back in the bag.
• New voyage: The setup is now done for a new voyage which will be a day longer.
  Loot tokens: All the days for this voyage are now populated with loot tokens following the previous rules.
  Draw cards: The player who initially drew 6 cards at the start of the 1st voyage now draws another 6. All other players also draw the same 6 cards.
  All players will now have 8 cards in hand, 2 from the previous voyage and 6 identical from the start of this one.
  Play now progresses normally for the allotted number days.

Endgame
Play progress until the night actions for the 3rd and final voyage are resolved.
Players compare their scoring dials.

​Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest feels like a complex game but in practice is quite straightforward. In essence, a character card is played and the resolved up to 3 times.
Where the game's complexity comes from is how a character card played interacts with character cards played by other players.

Everyone starts with the same hand of cards and will acquire a further identical 12 cards during the course of the game.
It means that all players will be using the same 18 cards played over in total 15 actions. But since it's unlikely that all players will make use of the same cards at the same, it means the game encourages players to watch their opponents. Knowing when someone has or hasn't played a certain card can prove very useful. This contextual information can allow players to adapt their tactics and can change the flow of the game.

Additionally; Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest injects a dose of 'take that' into the game, the 40 cards have a varied set of abilities that can be brought to play, including being able to eliminate other characters, pulling cards out of the graveyard, etc.
It's also worth noting that while the 'calm' side of the game board has the potential for some friction between players the 'stormy' side increases this.

The game also provides short and long term goals which require short, mid and long term strategies.
Day abilities on cards give players immediate benefits, but dusk and night abilities can also provide desirable benefits. A player may choose to put a high value character card on to the initiative track so they go earlier in the dusk phase to secure a certain type of loot.
Which brings me to long term strategy, loot is vital here. Loot typically provides benefits during the end of voyage phase and the loot for all days is openly shown on the board which players must take this into consideration during the whole journey. 

All of this means that Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest hits a sweet spot of accessible but tactical game play. Players are always given meaningful decisions to make using a degree of imperfect information.
I found it an engaging game. Definitely one to try.

14th May 2022

It's a Saturday and I'm in Aldershot after a impromptu get together with some friends.

Flip City AKA Design Town is a light and uncomplicated push-your-luck deck building game about developing a city.

What's in a game?

• Cards: All the cards in Flip City are double-sided and one side shows a 'basic' building such as a convenience store while the flip side shows the 'upgraded' version, which in this instance is the shopping mall.
  It's easy to tell which side is which, the purchase cost only appears in the top right corner of the basic side. Other than that, cards list their special ability at the bottom and 'flip cost' in the bottom right corner (More on flip costs below.), while in the bottom left it lists whether the card confers coins, VPs or 'unhappiness' (Which is a bad thing, again more on unhappiness below.)
  Residential area: The residential area is the game's 'starter' card and is the only card that does not have a purchase cost. The key thing to note about the residential area is that not only does it generate unhappiness, it forces the player to play it!
  It's essentially a trash card and after flipping it to the other side, it can be flipped again to put it into another player's discard pile.
  Other cards: There are 5 other types of card that come with the game including the expansion. They represent businesses or amenities that can be found in a city. All are double sided and there are about 10 copies of each type.

The cards are all the standard quality you'd expect from a card game.

The game uses brightly coloured stylised art throughout and I always like this kind of artwork and I think it looks good here.
additionally, the cards can be placed next to each to make a city landscape. Yes, it's unnecessary but it's a nice touch and shows some extra thought has gone into the presentation.

Flip City uses some iconography, but all of it is clear and easily learned or understood.

How's it play?
Setup

• Starting cards: Each player gets a starting hand of 9 cards consisting 4 residential areas, an apartment (Which is a flipped, upgraded residential area) and one each of the 4 other types of card (Not including the office which is a 'mini-expansion.).
  These should be shuffled into a deck with those cards face-up. Players must be careful not to inadvertently flip their decks.
  The remaining residential area cards are not used in the game.
• Other cards: Sort all the other cards into their individual types with the 'basic' side face-up and create a deck of each type and place them in the central area. Thus there will be 4 or 5 decks (If the office expansion is included.) in the central area.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
Each's active player's turn will consist of up to 2 phases, a play cards phase in which they play as many cards as they want or go bust and a buying phase.

• Play cards: Unlike other deck-building games, players in Flip City do not have a hand of cards.
  Instead they draw cards one-at-a-time from their deck, immediately resolving it before deciding to draw another. This means that players will always know what the first card will be at the start of their turn and what card is next during their turn.
  The twist here though, is that sometimes, when certain cards are revealed after a  drawing card, the players will be forced to play that card.
  Stop: The active player may choose to stop drawing cards any time they choose unless a revealed card forces the player to draw and play it.
  Go bust: If at any time, the active player plays cards that display 3 or more unhappiness symbols, they go bust and their turn immediately ends.
• Buying phase: Provided the active player has not gone bust, they may potentially perform one of the following three buy actions. The amount they have to spend will be equal to the combined value of coins on the cards they played.
  Buy a card: The active player may buy a card from the supply and add it to their discard.
  Flip a card: the active player may pay the cost to flip a card in their discard pile to its other side.
  When a card is flipped, it may immediately trigger an ability or it will change the cards ability when it's next drawn.
  Develop a card: If the active play can afford both costs, then they can buy a card from the supply and flip it before putting it into their discard pile.
  
• End of turn: Once the active player has completed their turn, all the cards they played are put into their discard pile. 
• Next player: Once the active player has either gone bust or completed their buy action, play moves to the player on their left.

Endgame
Play continues until 1 of 2 winning criteria is met.

• Points: If the active player has played cards that score 8 or more VPs, then they win the game.
• Cards: If the active player has played a convienece store and at least 17(!) other cards, then they win the game.

Overall
Flip City describes itself as a microdeckbuilder and it's not really wrong. Most deck-builders come with a supply-market of 10 card types or so but Flip City makes do with 4 types (5 if you include the micro-expansion), although they are double-sided, so there are actually 10 types of card. Even so, it's a very compact feeling game.

For me however, where Flip City differentiates itself from other games of its kind is the implementation of a push-your-luck mechanic.
It works well here, especially in conjunction with meeting the winning conditions, essentially forcing players to continue drawing cards and pushing their luck until they either have 8 VPs or 18 cards in play.
As a result, Flip City is a little different to many deck-builders, which at their core are more-or-less about creating cash-generating engines to purchase cards that will earn them more cash during the early-game or VPs during late-game play.
In Flip City, generating cash is still important because it allows players to acquire more cards but some of those cards will have to work towards being able to draw 8 VPs or 18 cards.

Flip City is a quirky, charming, fairly light and quick to play pocket-sized deck-builder that presents players with some meaningful paths to winning and choices as well as some unusual game play and a nice little risk-and-reward mechanic.
Given it's light nature, I'm not sure how the game will hold up to repeated play but that's sort of missing the point. This is a fun filler game that is good to ply every once in a while.
It's worth a try and if deck-builders are you thing, then this will probably appeal to you. 

13th May 2022

Friday the 13th continues and we in Farnborough for some more after work gaming goodness.

Many games have small components that could be considered choking hazards, that however is not the case with... Joking Hazard, a game inspired by the Cyanide & Happiness comic strip.

What's in a game?

• Cards: Joking Hazard has a deck of 250 cards.
  Most cards feature a black border and some features a red one.
  All the artwork is inspired by Cyanide & Happiness artwork and each card is a single panel of that style of cartoony art and usually features 1 or more stickmen, often dong something offensive - which will be no surprise to anyone who's read the strip.

That's it for the components.

There's not much more to say about the cards, they're quality is pretty good, considering the game's origin, the artwork is exactly what is expected and the game uses no iconography.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck and deal 7 cards to each player.
• First player: Determine a starting player.

On to play
Individual cards in Joking hazard essentially have no context and this is a game about putting them into  context by constructing jokes out of 3 comic panels, only the comic panels will be to some degree randomly created.

• Draw card: The active player draws a card from the deck. If it has a black border, then it will be a normal round. If it's a red-bordered card, then it becomes a bonus round.
• Normal round: The active player puts the card face-up into the central playing area.
  Add card: Then the active player takes a card from their hand and places it to the left or the right of the first card, creating the first 2 panels of the comic strip.
  Other players: Each other player then chooses a card from their hand which will become the 3rd panel of the strip and plays it face-down to the right of the first 2 cards. Basically creating the punchline.
  Judging: The active player reveals the face-down cards one-by-one. When they've read all the card, they choose the card which created the 'best' or 'funniest' joke and that player is awarded a point.
• Bonus round: When a bonus round occurs, the active player puts the red-bordered card into the playing area face-up.
  Unlike a normal round, the active player does not add a 2nd card.
  Other players: Now the other players add 2 cards in any order they wish in front of the card to create a comic strip.
  Unlike the normal round where the other players create the punchline, in a bonus round they create the set-up and the red-bordered card becomes the punchline.
  Judging: As with a normal round, the active player decides who has created the best or funniest gag and awards them a point.
  
• Draw cards: Once judging for the round is over, all players draw back up to 7 cards in hand.
• Next player: Play progress to the person on the left who now becomes the active player.

Endgame

The first player to win 3 points, wins!

Overall
Joking Hazard is an accessible party game that can be played by up to 10 participants and is equal parts mildly amusing and mildly offensive. Well... as offensive as the Cyanide & Happiness comic it's based on. So I guess if you're easily offended, you might want to give this a miss.

From a gameplay perspective, you would be forgiven for thinking Joking Hazard is just the same as other 'you be the judge' games. However, Joking Hazard differs because individual cards have no context. There is no statement A and answer B. The players create context themselves, which gives the game a slight edge.

Is it any good though? The answer is; sort of, which to be honest, is not a good answer really and a bit of a cop-out.
But the truth is; this games clearly sits in the domain of beer-and-pretzels. If you're going to be playing it with a bunch of slightly dour-faced gamers who usually play 6 hour empire building, resource managing, epoch spanning games, no one's going to enjoy this.
However, if you play it with some work colleagues or non-gamers who's only understanding of games is 'Is it like monopoly?' then they'll probably have a blast, especially if they've had a drink or two and that's who the game is targeted anyway.