30th June 2022

It's a Thursday and we're at Aldershot for some gaming goodness.

Burger Boss! What's better than being a king? Being a boss of course!
​Be a boss of those burgers in this game of resource management and worker placement or if you want to be specific; dice-placement.

What's in game?

• Cards: Burger Boss is not a card game per se but uses cards as a sort of proxy board and uses them for a variety of functions.
  • Restaurant cards: These come in every player colour and each has a differing humourous restaurant theme.
  • Kitchen cards: Can't have a burger joint without kitchen. Kitchen cards come in each player colour and have spaces for a worker, cold storage (A fridge basically.) and a grill track. Each colour also has a couple of expansion kitchen cards that when unlocked add more fridge spaces and additional grill tracks.
  • Game cards: Each of the game's main 8 actions are managed by a card. Each will have an amount of numbered worker spaces that can be used. Many of these spaces also require dice of specific value.
    More on game cards below.
  • Secret mission cards: Each of these provides players with a secret bonus scoring opportunity only revealed during the game end.
  • Manager's Special Cards: These can be acquired during play and provide players with bonus or special actions including some 'take that!' actions.
  • Meal Size Cards: The longer customers have to wait, the hungrier they get and the more food they'll buy! I'm sure that's how it works in real life?
    These 3 cards give a bonus of $1-$3 per customer respectively and speaking of customers...
  • Customer Cards: There are 30 customers, they're all very fussy and have specific food requirements for their burgers as displayed on their cards. Each card also lists how much they pay for their burger.
  • Turn Order Card: Burger Boss does not use a traditional turn order and it is tracked on this card.
• Dice: There are 4 dice in each player colour. These are typical six-siders.
• Cubes: Burger Boss has little wooden cubes, although there's only 1 in each player colour and they're used in conjunction with the turn order card.
• Ingredients: Ah yes - the meat of the game! (SIC). Ingredients are represented by these sort of tiny - but chunky wooden discs. They come in 5 colours which correspond to the types of 5 ingredients; buns, burger patties, cheese slices, lettuce and tomato.
• Money: Cash is represented by the standard round card tokens.

All the game's cards are finished in vinyl/plastic and as such feel quite sturdy.
The dice plastic, although they have nicely rounded corners.
Wooden components are always a plus in my book. The discs used to represent burgers and ingredients are obviously wrongly proportioned but if they were correctly sized, they'd have to be much bigger, otherwise they'd make the handling ingredients even more fiddly than it already is - which is quite fiddly and is my one criticism of the components.

Presentation wise, Burger Boss uses a cheerfully brash palette along with cartoonish illustrations. It's a bright, colourful art style that suits the game's light-hearted approach perfectly.

There's little iconography used in the game and it's easily understood, mostly consisting of symbol ingredients and and dice values.
The manager's special cards use text to provide information, which is a little sparse and will probably have players referring to the rules. It's not something that will occur too often though.

Packaging
I don't usually talk about a game's packaging - because usually it's just a box.
Burger Boss however, comes in a giant burger! Inside are several layers to hold all of the game's components.
Yes I know that it won't stack with other games and the manual doesn't fit in the burger and it'll just have to be put all back into it's normal, typical box anyway which technically defeats the  purpose of the burger packing - but it gives the game a unique, eye-catching presentation and I like that.
Yes, I also know it's just a gimmick but I like gimmicks!

How's it play?
Setup

• Starting cards: Give each player the restaurant card, kitchen card and 2 dice in their player colour.
• Cash: Give each player their starting $3.
• Secret mission cards: Shuffle the cards and deal 1 face-down to each player. These should be kept hidden until the game end.
• Game cards: Put out the 8 game cards.
• Manager's special cards: Shuffle these cards into a face-down deck.
• Meal size cards: Arrange the 3 cards in a row sequentially with the lowest on the left and highest on the right. Thus going $1, $2 and $3.
  During the game, customer cards will be added in columns beneath the meal size cards and slide rightwards throughout the game.
• Customer cards: Shuffle the customer cards into a face-down deck. 

On to play
The objective in Burger Boss is to fulfil customer orders to earn money, this is done by gaining and cooking the required ingredients. All of these actions are achieved by putting dice on cards, many of these cards will require dice of specific values.
The game does not have a traditional turn order and instead uses a mechanic that mixes randomness and player choice to determine player order. Once player order is established, whenever someone becomes the active player, they can take an action by using a die.
Each round consists of the following phases.

• New customers: Deal 2 customer cards in a column beneath the $1 bonus card.
  There will be no customer cards at the game start but in subsequent rounds any unfulfilled customer cards will be slid 1 space to the right and more customers will be introduced using a sort of conveyor belt mechanic. Thus there can be up to 6 customer cards available at any one time.
  If a customer card has reached the 3rd space and must be slid across, it is instead discarded out of the game. Now that's an unsatisfied customer!
• ​Turn order: Every round, dice are rolled to determine turn order.
  For the first round, the turn order is dictated by players openly rolling their 2 dice, whoever gets the lowest roll goes 1st, 2nd lowest goes 2nd and so on.
  However, in all subsequent rounds, every player rolls their dice in secret and can choose how many and which of their dice they want to use and declares them to the other players.
  This decision will apply to both turn order and to having dice to use as workers and their values during the round.
  It means for example; a player can use 1 die to go earlier in the turn order but will only get 1 worker.
  This becomes more important when players get 3 or 4 dice to use. Generally, having more workers is beneficial, but they'll be times a player will want to go first.
• Actions: Once turn order has been determined, the game goes to actions and players get to each place 1 die at a time in that order.
  Spaces on game cards are limited, furthermore, the actions on many game cards will require a die of a specific number, additionally a couple of actions will require 2 dice.
  Once a the active player has placed a die (Provided it meets the required conditions.) it is immediately resolved. There a numerous actions potentially available to players.
  • Bakery: There are 5 spaces here numbered from 1-5 and they allow the active player to gain 1 or 2 burger buns depending on the value of the die used.
  • Butcher: There also 5 spaces on this card but numbered 2-6, again they allow the player to acquire 1 or 2 burger patties.
  • Cheese shop: There are 4 unnumbered spaces in a row here and they work a little differently. Dice are placed left to right and the 1st die placed here can be of any value but all subsequent dice must have a value equal to or higher than the preceding die.
    This means if the 1st die placed is a 6, then all subsequent dice must be 6's.
  • Fruit & veg: There are 6 spaces here, numbered 1-6. Spaces numbered 1-3 allow the active player to gain lettuce while spaces numbered 4-6 gives them a tomato ingredient.
  • Kitchen expansion: This card can be used exactly twice by all players to gain their kitchen expansion cards.
    The first expansion requires a pair of doubles or a single die of any value and cost of $5.
    The final expansion requires a pair of doubles and $5 or a single die and $10.
  • Manager's specials: There are 8 unnumbered spaces here. The active player may place a die of any value here to draw a manager's special card.
    These will provide players with some sort of bonus of some kind. Manager's special cards can be played at anytime in the active players turn.
  • Supermarket: This card allows players to gain any ingredients of their choice by paying for them.
    There are 3 unnumbered spaces here that allow a player to buy 1, 2 or 3 ingredients of their choice for a respective cost of $2, $4, or $6.
  • Workers: As with the kitchen expansion, this card can be used only twice by each player and allows them to gain more dice for use in later rounds.
    The first worker dice requires a pair of doubles or a single die of any value and cost of $5.
    The final worker requires a pair of doubles and $5 or a single die and $10.
  • Kitchen: The kitchen is where customers' burgers are created. Players must create stacks of ingredients that exactly match the requirements on customer cards. There are a number of rules regarding the kitchen and cooking.
    Gaining ingredients: Whenever a player gains ingredients from the above actions, they go into the storage space on their kitchen card(s), any excess ingredients are discarded. Also: ingredients acquired cannot be used for cooking in the round they were acquired.
    Cooking: To cook food, a die of any value must be placed on to the kitchen card, only 1 die ever required to cook, regardless of the number of kitchen cards a player has. This allows the player to move ingredients from the storage onto the grill, these ingredients cannot be removed, however, in later rounds more ingredients can be added. It's also possible to have multiple food orders cooking at the same time on the grill's 3 spaces.
• Next player: Once the active player has resolved their action, play progresses to the next player in the turn order. If the new active player does not have any dice left to place, they simply pass. Once all workers have used, the game goes to the next phase.
• Sales: This phase only occurs once all players have placed all workers. Then, in turn order players can fulfil customers orders, allowing them to remove the required ingredient stake from their grill, take the customer card and earn the money listed on the card plus the size bonus of the column it was in.
• End of round: Several events occur at the end of a round.
  Ingredients on grills: All ingredients on all grills move 1 space to the right on the grill track. If a stack of ingredients comes off the 3rd and final grill space, they are discarded and the player receives a kingly​ $1 for their troubles!
  ​Dice: All players retrieve their dice from all cards and play returns to the new customers phase.

Endgame
The endgame is triggered when the customer card deck is depleted - although there will be customer cards in play. There is then 1 final round of playing then the game goes to scoring.

Players total money from the following:
Money earned from selling food to customers.
Money earned from their secret objective card.
Anything still on the grill earns $1 apiece; food in storage earns nothing.

Cash is tallied, highest amount wins.

Overall
Burger Boss is a light-to-midweight game, as written above, the rules seem a bit complex but in practice they're fairly straightforward. That's not say it's a good game for beginners - because it's not!

There are several mechanics and concepts in Burger Boss that that require thinking ahead and someone nuanced decisionmaking.
Quite often, it'll be impossible to complete a customer's order in a single round and generally there isn't enough cold storage to hold the required ingredients. This means that players will probably have to put ingredients on to their grill and hope to complete them in a later round. Mistake's can be costly and $1 is scant compensation for losing food.
Which brings me to customers. There's a balance to be found between completing a customer order as quickly as possible and waiting for a later turn to earn more money but risking another player getting that customer first!

While there is no direct interaction between players in Burger Boss, the game has a lot of open information and it definitely pays to watch what other players are doing; what they've got on their grills, where they're putting their workers and responding to this.

This ties in with the turn order mechanic, sometimes players will want to use less workers to go earlier.
​Worker spaces to gain ingredients are limited and turn order can play a vital role when fulfilling customer orders, in both cases, going later and being stymied by other players' actions (Whether accidentally or deliberately.) can be infuriating.

Burger Boss also has a a bit of the unexpected, manager's special card can also throw spanners into the works with unexpected special actions, especially when used judiciously.

Despite this, the game provides options to gaining other benefits - or benefits other ways, if the baker or butcher is inaccessible for any reason, there's always the supermarket. There's a pretty generous number of worker spaces on the card for the aforementioned manager's cards.
All of these means that rarely is a player presented with meaningless decisions which is always a good thing in games.

I found Burger Boss to be a colourful, visually appealing game of making burger (OK, they stacks of ingredients, but still it looks good.) and fun worker placement and resource management game with a reasonable play time and gameplay that's tricky enough to tax the brain enough to be engaging, along with a side order (SIC) of competitiveness.

15th May 2022

It's a Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena for some online board gaming fun.

Diced Tomatoes, a game about tomatoes that uses dice - what it says on the tin er... box!

Caveat: we've only played this game digitally.

​What's in a game?

• Dice: You'll be unsurprised to learn that Diced Tomatoes comes with quite a few dice, these are all normal six-siders and come in 3 colours.
  Red dice: By far the most common type, red dice are main avenue for point scoring.
  Black dice: When your tomatoes go rotten, that's when black dice come into play. Typically, one player will 'inflict' them on another.
  Gold dice: The rarest of dice, can be used to earn bonus points.
• Vine tokens: These tokens are double sided, one side shows a blank area and the flip side shows a space to place a 'seed' die. Vine tokens are the beginnings of creating (Or seeding.) a tomato vine. More on this below.
• Star fruit tokens: Used to track bonus points.
• Player board: Used to track karma and to track scoring with 6 locations numbered 1 to 6 to place seeding dice once they're vines are completed.

There's not much art to speak of in Diced Tomatoes, understandably, the minimalist art is red-themed.

How's it play?
Setup

• Dice: ​Give each player 11 red dice, 2 black dice and 1 gold die to put into their own personal supply.
• Board: Give each player a board and a put the karma marker on 3.
• Vine tokens: give each player 3 vine tokens which should be placed face-up.
• First player: Players roll their golden die to determine the starting player.
• Dice pool: Now all players pool their dice into a central supply that all players can use.

On to play
Points are scored in Diced Tomatoes by creating vertical lines of 4 dice (Vines if you will.) in either straights or sets of-a-kind.
In a turn, the active player takes their actions which will involve rolling and placing dice, which may result in them or other players scoring points.

• Vine tokens: If the active player has any face-down vine tokens, then they are flipped face-up. Obviously, this will not apply in a player's first turn.
• Roll the dice: The active player must take 3 dice from central supply and roll them. They can choose any combination of the 3 available colours, however only red dice can be used as seeding dice (More on this below.), so at the start it's a good idea to choose 3 reds. Later, players may choose to put black or gold dice into the mix.
  Additionally, in later turns, players will probably have dice 'passed' to them, which means they get more to roll.
• Place dice: Once the dice are rolled, the active player places them according to the following rules. Furthermore, the active player must place dice if they can, even if this means benefitting another player, although they will most likely do this to try and hinder other players instead.
  • Seeding dice: A red die of any value may be placed on to a empty face-up vine token. This is the start of that particular vine and that die becomes the seeding die, which is also it's 'value' and will be the VP's that are earned when the vine is completed.
    Thus; if a '4' is placed on to a vine token, that die will be worth 4 VPs when the vine is completed.
  • Add to a vine: If a vine token already has a seeding die on it, then dice can be added to that vine with the following provisos.
    • Matching: If the die being placed is the same value as the seeding die, then it can be placed above or below the seeding die. This means that this vine has become a 'matching set' trick.
    • Straight: If a die is exactly 1 higher or lower than a seeding die, then a higher value die can be placed above the seeding below and a lower value die will go below.
      When a die is added to a seeding die is this fashion, this vine becomes a 'straight' set.
    • Continue set: If a vine has 2 or more dice on it, then only dice which continue the trick can be added to it.
      So, if a vine has 2 '5' dice on it, then only 5's can be added to it to continue the matching set.
      If a vine has a straight, then that straight must be continued by adding lower value dice to the bottom or higher value dice to the top.
    • Black and gold dice: Every black die is placed on a vine lowers the value of the seeding die by 1.
      Conversely, every gold die on a vine increases the seeding die's value by 1.
      If the value of a seeding die ever drops below 1 or rises above 6, then that vine is wiped clean and becomes empty!
    • Other players: It will be likely at some point or other that the active player will not be able add dice to their vines. In this case, they must add dice to the vine token/dice of another player, even if it scores that other player points.
      There is a benefit to finishing another player's vine though, which is karma, more on this below.
    • End turn and pass dice: At the end of their turn, any dice the active player cannot place on either their own vines or those of another player must be passed on to the player on their left who will roll them in addition to the 3 dice they pick and roll in their turn.

​That's it for the basic flow of a turn, there are some other rules.

• Karma: All players start with 3 karma and can accumulate up to 12 during their turn, however, only 6 karma can be carried over from turn to turn.
  Karma is acquired by completing other player's vines and can be used to change the value of dice in some way or other and may even be used by a player to wipe one of their vines clear of all dice. Why would a player want to do this? Well more on that later.
• Scoring: Once a vine has accumulated 4 dice, it is immediately scored. This applies to all players, thus it is possible for players other than the active player to score points.
  VPs: When a vine is scored, the player takes the seeding die and places it on the first available scoring space on their player board, so the 1st seeding die to score goes on the '1' space, the 2nd seeding die would go on the 2nd space and so forth.
  If there were any black and/or gold dice on the vine, the seeding die's face is changed accordingly. E.g., a gold die on the vine would turn a '1' into a '2'.
  A seeding dice on the scoring board is worth it's face-value in VPs, a die showing a '4' would be worth.
  The other 3 dice are returned to the central pool.
  Bonus points: If the value on a seeding die matches the value of the scoring space it is put on to, then the player earns bonus points. So if seeding die with a value of '3' is places on the 3rd scoring spot, it will earn bonus points; how many bonus points?
  ​Basically, it increases the spot's VP score to 7 for each matching die/spot. This is tracked with the star fruit tokens.
• Flip vine token: Once a vine is scored, the now empty vine token is flipped 'face-down' and no seeding die (For better or for worse.) can be played on it until it is flipped over in the owning player's turn.

Endgame
There are 2 criteria that can trigger the game end.
If there are no dice left in the central pool at the end of the active player's turn, then the game immediately ends.
Alternatively, once any player has filled all 6 spots on their scoring board, they score 2 bonus VPs, current round is played out and the game ends. 

Players now calculate their finishing scores from the following sources.

• Points come from seeding dice on the scoring track plus a possible 2 bonus points.
• Star fruit tokens.
• Remaining karma score
• Remaining red dice on vines.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Despite Diced Tomatoes being a fairly light game with an unusual implementation of trick-taking mechanics (In that you don't really take other players' tricks - well you can ruin them instead!), it does give players lots to think about.

Firstly players will want to create their own vines. The order in which seeding dice are scored can be very important because getting it right will earn bonus points. This is particularly true for the early scoring spaces. A value 1 seeding die earns 6 VPs when placed on the 1 slot but a value 6 seeding die placed on the 6 slot only earns 1 bonus VP.

Secondly, because players can put dice on to the vine tokens and vines of other players, it means that they can try to complete them to gain karma.

Alternatively, they can try and mess with other player vines to disrupt their scoring.
E.g., if another player has a vine with 3 '1s' which they are intending to put into scoring slot 1, adding a 1 value black dice would complete the vine, but the black die would lower the seeding die's value to 0 - wiping that vine out.

​Or ​adding a gold die would add 1 point making the seeding die worth 2 when completed, this means the other player would not gain the star fruit bonus when putting it on scoring slot 1. So while they've gained a VP from the gold die, they've lost the bonus from not matching the scoring slot, collectively losing 5 VPs!
So it seems sometimes, players will want to wipe out their own vines to keep a scoring opportunity open!

As you can see, Dice Tomatoes provides quite a lot of interaction between players and a quite lot of opportunities for 'take that' moves and depending on how you feel about this style of play, may or may not be your kind of thing.
Personally I'm a bit ambivalent about it - especially in a game that's a quick and light filler.
One thing I'm not a fan of is having your vines wiped when your score goes above 6. I know why the rules are that way but it feels a bit mean spirited and counter-intuitive to lose points by gaining points.

Diced Tomatoes is a not difficult to learn, fairly quick to play filler game. Mechanically it's fairly solid and has a unique spin on trick-taking. I'm struggling to find any genuine criticism but then, I'm also struggling to find any reason to play it again.
I feel that the ease in which players can interfere in each other's plans is a bit of a frustration and it left me unengaged. It also feel like it prolongs what could be a short and sweet game.
It's not a bad game but there's just other game's I'd rather play.
Of course YMMV and maybe you'd get more out of it but Diced Tomatoes isn't one for me.

30th April 2022

It's a Saturday afternoon and Wogglecon 3 with the Woking Gaming Club is in full swing.

The next game of the day was Machi Koro 2 which is the follow up to the most excellent original Mach Koro and which you can read about here.

Like its predecessor, Machi Koro 2 is a tableau and engine building card game all about constructing a city,

What's in a game?

• Cards: Machi Koro 2 makes use of several types of colour coded cards which are broadly divided into 2 categories, establishments and landmarks
  • Establishments: Each establishment card has various icons.
    Type: In the top left corner of each establishment card it shows its type and whether it can 'combo' off of other cards.
    Activation number: In the middle at the top, each card has an activation number that ranges from 1-12 and the card's colour determines when activation is applicable.
    Action: The lower half of cards contain text explaining how they function when activated.
    Cost: The bottom left corner of each card is the cost to buying it.
    Finally, establishments are further divided into 2 sub-categories, depending on their activation number; these are 1-6 and 7-12, which is displayed on the card backs.
  • Landmarks: Each landmark in Machi Koro 2 is unique but they all share some similar features.
    Cost: Most landmarks have a set of 3 costs, generally rising in value from left-to-right.
    Type: Each landmark will also have symbol determining whether it has a single use or ongoing effect.
    Action: The bottom half of each landmark will also contain text explaining how that card works.
• Coins: The game comes with chunky plastic coins which are definitely and upgrade from the original's card coins.
• Dice: These are 2 typical six-siders.

Components in Machi Koro 2 are all good. The cards are pretty standard cards as you'd expect. The coins feel solid and the dice are slightly larger than usual dice, they're plastic but also rounded, chunky and have a bit of heft to them.

Machi Koro 2 uses an art style that's identical to the original. Brightly coloured stylised almost cartoony illustrations of establishments and landmarks. The colours are very distinct, which is good because colour plays an important part in the game.

There are a few icons in Machi Koro 2, for the different types of establishment and types of effects on landmarks. It's all pretty clear what they mean and it won't provide an problems for players.

How's it play?
Setup

• Drafting area: Sort the cards into their 3 types, then shuffle them into 3 individual face-down decks and place them into a vertical line.
  Draw cards from each deck and place them face-up in a row next to their respective deck. Do this until you have 5 different kinds of card in each row. Any duplicates drawn should be stacked on a single space.
• Coins: Give each player 5 coins.
• First player: Determine a start player.
• Buy-in: Beginning with the first player and proceeding in turn order, each player has the opportunity to purchase 1 of any available card in the drafting area. Any spaces that appear after a card is taken are immediately refilled.
  Repeat this 3 times.

On to play
Machi Koro 2 uses the traditional turn order with the active player playing their turn before the the player to their left becomes the active player.
During their turn, the active player has 3 phases to play through.

• Roll the dice: The active may choose whether to roll 1 or 2 dice.
  This is different to the original where a landmark had to be constructed to unlock the 2nd die.
  The result of the roll is the activation number.
• Activations: When the activation number is declared, all players must look at their own cards to see which, if any are activated - cards with a matching activation number are potentially activated! Thus if the activation number is a '5', any card with a 5 activation may possibly be activated.
  When a card is activated, the action described on the bottom half of the card is resolved.
  Whether a card is activated or not, depends on its colour.
  Red cards: Red cards generally allow you get coins off of other players during the game and are only activated in another player's turn, the active player never actives their own red cards.
  E.g., if any non-active player has 1 or more red cards with a matching activation number it will allow that player to take money off the active player. Only the active player is affected by red cards.
  Blue cards: These cards are activated in any player's turn, thus both the active and non-active players may activate blue cards. Blue cards always earn coins from the bank and are obviously the most activated type of card.
  Green cards: Only the active player may activate green cards. Non-active players cannot activate their green cards. As with blue cards, green cards earn the controlling player coins from the bank. Some green cards are combo cards and earn coins dependant on other cards with the matching type.
  Purple cards: Like green cards, purple cards can only be activated by the active player. Purple cards have a variety of effects, including taking coins from other players, swapping establishments with them and more!
  Landmarks: While landmark cards have no specific activation numbers, if they have an ongoing effect, then they will have some other criteria, that when met will activate the landmark. Criteria include rolling doubles or having having a type of card activated by the roll and so on. Each landmark is unique and they have a wide variety of actions that can be resolved.
  Pity coin: Not an action per se, but the pity coin rule occurs at the end of the activation phase: If after resolving all activations, the active player has 0 coins in their personal supply (Perhaps due to other player's red cards!), then they can take 1 (Pity!) coin from the bank for their troubles to use for purchasing.
• Purchase card: The active player may purchase any 1 single card from the drafting area by paying it's cost. Players may over several turns purchase more than 1 copy of red/blue/green cards, the exception being purples; players may only have 1 copy of each purple.
  Landmark: Each landmark card has 3 costs. The 1st landmark a player purchases costs the 1st value, the 2nd landmark costs the 2nd value and the 3rd landmarks costs the 3rd value. If a landmark card is single-use, it's effect is triggered immediately upon purchase.
• Next turn: Once the active player has bought a card or passed, play progresses to the player on their left who becomes the new active player.

Endgame
When any player purchases their 3rd landmark, they immediately win the game.

Overall
Machi Koro 2 is a that's fairly easy to pick up and play light-to-mid weight game that has a quick playtime.
The game generally presents players mostly straightforward but meaningful decisions about buying cards.

Should a player spread their cards over a range of numbers to get better coverage, or concentrate on fewer numbers but getter pay outs when the numbers come up.
Players will also need to consider what those numbers are. e.g., 6-8 will come up most often - provided players are rolling 2 dice have a good chance of being activated.

Speaking of rolling dice, in Machi Koro 2 players are able to choose to roll 1 or 2 right from the start. This is another decision that players can make, sometimes they'll want to roll certain numbers or avoiding rolling them and using 1 or 2 dice can alter odds of doing this.
Much of this ties in with how the activation numbers are distributed across the cards. A lot of the 1-6 cards will immediately generate cash but the cards that combo off of them tend to be in the 7-12 range. Going to 2 dice was described by a player as 'going up a gear'.
It can be pretty hard to slowly build up cash over rounds to get landmarks because other players can essentially 'nickel and dime' it away, gearing up makes it easier to get big cash in a single roll to avoid this.

And talking of nickel and diming, another strategy to consider is the red card strategy.
Using red cards to fleece other players of their coins is a pretty effective strategy, it denies them coins and earns them at the same time - but you won't make any friends that way!
The downside of this approach is that canny players will try their best to spend all their coins, the game's timing explicitly states that red activations occur before any other, thus if opponents have no coins, you can't collect them with a red since their blues/greens/purples activate after red.
It means that in a quirky reflection of real cities, players will want to be as close to bankruptcy as possible!
Unlike blue/green cards, reds are not guaranteed to generate income.

Machi Koro 2 is a little on the light side (Not that I consider that an issue.) and perhaps a little too quick to end, which may not be to everyone's taste.
One other thing to mention is that there's definitely a dollop of luck to the game, I'm fine with it and actually think it's an important part of the Machi Koro experience but some players will find this off putting.

I do have a couple of relatively minor issues with Machi Koro 2.
In the original Machi Koro, the card variety in the base game was fairly low, when 'The Harbour' expansion was added to the base game, Machi Koro went from being a 'nice' game to a 'great' game.
I feel the same is true of Machi Koro 2 as well. There are only 20 different types of establishment and 10 will be visible right from the start. After playing a few games, players will have more or less seen everything the game has to offer at a basic level and and will habitually fall into familiar patterns or strategies depending how establishments emerge. An expansion would shake that up, I would love to see extra cards for Machi Koro 2.
Finally, the rules for landmarks having actions that all players can activate in their turn is a little inelegant, requiring players to remember what landmarks other players have acquired or be reminded of them by those other players.

​Otherwise, I think Machi Koro 2 an un-taxing (Sic.) fun and breezy game to play that's worth trying if lighter games are your thing.

How does it compare to Machi Koro?
I've heard Machi Koro 2 described as Machi Koro 1.5 and there's definitely a sliver of truth to that. Anyone who's played the original will be familiar with nearly everything in Machi Koro 2. If it's not broken...

So apparently there was also some criticism of the original where it was stated that there was a lot 'whiff' in the early game - where players would roll the dice and nothing would be activated. There was further criticism that the original had too long a play time.
It's clear that Machi Koro has tried to address these issues.

The 3 rounds of buying will allow players to have a better spread of numbers at the start. 
Having to only buy 3 landmarks will also make play quicker (Although the cheaper landmarks are way more expensive than the cheapest landmarks from the original.).

Landmarks with ongoing effects that activate in any player's turn also make the game quicker and can add an extra layer of interaction between players, although I've frequently seen players avoid these cards, instead optioning for once-only landmarks and I sort of feel that way myself.
This is the only thing I see as a possible misstep.

Changes to the game have made the red cards a bit more powerful, there's little opportunity to punish players who buy red cards in Machi Koro 2, other than one of the landmarks (Machi Koro had the publisher card to do this.). I don't think this is too much of change though and YMMV.

So anyway, all of this makes the game clearly quicker to play but I feel that perhaps it's a little too quick. Sometimes (Especially when someone gets a good roll or two.)  a game can be over before players can adopt an emergent strategy.
I never found that the original was overlong.

Don't let this put you off playing Machi Koro 2, it's of a similar quality as they original. Even though I own the first game, I was happy to buy and play the second  and would recommend it to players of the original as well as to people who have never played it.

8th February 2022

Tuesday night games with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns continued with Fantastic Factories.

I don't know if factories are fantastic but I guess we're going to find out.

What's in a game?

• Player board: These rectangular boards contain recessed spaces to assign 3 rows of up to 3 dice each and considered each player's headquarters.
  Research: This is the first row, dice of any value can be assigned here.
  Generate: Dice showing values 1-3 can be assigned here.
  Mine: Finally, dice displaying 4-6 can be assigned here.
• ​Dice: Fantastic Factories comes with quite a few dice. They're normal six-siders constructed of translucent acrylic with rounded corners and dots.
  There are 5 sets of 4 dice in player colours and a generic set of 8 grey-white dice which players can acquire temporarily.
• Tokens: The game makes use of various types of card tokens.
  Energy tokens: These round tokens are unsurprisingly marked with lightning bolts.
  Metal tokens: Metal bars are used to indicate these are metal tokens
  Goods tokens: There are 2 types of these token that show 1 or 2 crates and correspondingly represent 1 or 2 goods.
  Tool type tokens: There is 1 each of these 4 tokens and they show a cog, wrench, hammer and shovel. They are used to determine the type of tool required to hire contractors (See below for more on contractors.). Tool type symbols also appear on blueprint cards.
• Cards: There are 2 types of cards in Fantastic Factories.
  Blueprints: These are the factories that players will build.
  In the top left it lists the cost to build the factory, this will include some combination of energy and metal as well as a tool. Additionally, when a blueprint is discarded, it will generate that tool type.
  In the top right corner it shows the VPs the card is worth when built. 
  Finally, in the bottom half, the card shows what kind of ability that blueprint will have when built, e.g, spending energy to get goods or something along those lines.
  ​Contractors: These cards have once-only abilities that are triggered when the card is bought (Contractor is hired.). Hiring contractors will cost a tool, the exact type of tool is determined by the tool type tokens.
• First player marker: The game features a wooden first player token shaped like a factory, it even has a pair of polluting smokestacks!

The components in Fantastic Factories are average in quality, which means they're perfectly acceptable, there's nothing poor here. Having said that, the translucent dice look good despite not being wooden, speaking of which, the wooden first player marker is a nice touch.

From an art perspective, the game makes good use of cheerfully bright colours. The art itself uses heavily stylised illustrations of both factories and contractors which is fine and suits the game's slightly light-hearted theme.

When built, factories provide a varied amount of special actions, consequently the game makes use of quite a varied amount of iconography. For the most part it's straightforward, however, on occasion 2 cards may seem similar but they'll be a small difference between denominated by a single small icon or sometimes they'll just be something 
​I wouldn't say it's any kind of a gamebreaker or that there's too much iconography but for a few turns players will probably end up referring to the rules.

How's it play?
Setup

• Tool tokens: Put out the 4 tool tokens in a line, the order does not matter.
• Contractors: Shuffle the contractor cards into a face-down deck, then deal 4 face-up with each one in line beneath each tool token.
• Blueprints: Also shuffle these into a face-down deck and again, deal 4 face-up, this time below the contractor cards.
  Marketplace: Thus this row of 4 tokens with 2 rows of 4 cards beneath also forms 4 columns and is what is called the marketplace.
• Players: Give each player a player board, 4 dice in their player colour, 2 energy and 1 metal token.
  Finally, deal 4 blueprint cards to each player.

On to play
Broadly speaking, a round is broken into 2 phases; a market phase which occurs in turn order and a work phase, which can be performed simultaneously by all players.

• Market phase: Starting with the first player and going in turn order, everyone may perform the optional action, then must choose one of the following 2 actions.
  • Optional action: By spending an energy or metal token, the active player may wipe one of the two rows of cards in the marketplace and have 4 new cards revealed.
  • Hire contractor: The active player may hire 1 contractor card by paying it's cost which will a combination of whatever energy/metal tokens it may require plus the tool symbol for the column it's in, the active player does this by discarding a card from their hand with a matching tool symbol.
    When a contractor is acquired, it's ability is used immediately and the card is discarded.
    That's not very realistic, if it was, the contractor would do nothing for 3 rounds and then charge the player again before doing anything!
    OR
  • Gain blueprint: The active player may buy a blueprint much as they would do with a contractor card except they do not need to pay the tool cost. When the active player acquires a blueprint card, it goes into their hand.
• Work phase: This phase can be carried out by all players simultaneously if they wish.
  Roll dice: The first action that occurs in the work is rolling dice.
  After this, there are several types of action that can be performed during the work phase and players carry them out in any order they choose.
  • Headquarters/basic actions: All 3 basic actions involve assigning the rolled dice to spaces on the headquarters board. The numbers rolled will affect where those can be assigned and what they do.
    • Research: Dice with any value can be assigned to this action. For each dice assigned this way, the player can draw a card from the blueprint deck (Not the face-up cards.)
    • Generate: Only dice numbering 1-3 can be assigned to this action, then the player would acquire energy tokens equal to the value of the dice assigned. E.g., if a 1 and a 3 are placed in generate, the player would gain 4 energy.
    • Mine: Only dice numbering 4-6 can be placed here and each die assigned earn the player a metal token.
      Matched numbers: If a pair of matching numbers are assigned any single basic action, it increases the amount the player gain by 1. If 3 matching numbers are assigned, it would earn the player an extra 2.
      Putting 5 and 5 into research or mine would earn the player 3 blueprints/metal tokens.
      If a player somehow would manage to put 3, 3 and 3 into generate, it would earn them 11 energy!​
  • Build blueprints: Players may build any number of blueprint cards from their hand provided they can meet all the costs, this will of course involve discarding blueprint cards with the identical tool symbol.
  • Activate buildings: Players may activate buildings that have been built in any order they see fit. Each building can only be activated once per turn however.
    Buildings have an activation cost, this might be a resource or even a die and will produce some other resource for the player.
• Extra dice: Some abilities allow players to acquire extra dice to use, these always come from the supply of grey/white dice, are temporary and will return back to their supply at the end of the round.
• Next round: Once all players have finished their actions, the first player marker moves to the player on the right and a new round begins with the next market phase.

Endgame
Play continues until either a player has built their 10th card or acquired their 12th good.
In either case, the current round ends and 1 more round is played.
Players then total the VPs from their buildings and the goods they gained.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
On a basic level, Fantastic Factories is mechanically pretty straightforward; acquire blueprints, acquire resources to build factories, use factories to acquire resources.

It's a mid-weight engine building game that provides players with strong card synergy and offers a good selection of choices and avenues to follow for building that engine.
I feel for the most part that players will want to focus on blueprints and building them, which is natural as this is what gets resources and VPs.
Players shouldn't neglect the contractors who provide instant if transitory benefits for a relatively low cost. Applied at the right time, they can be game changers - provided they're available at the right time! Once again, it's a case of reacting to opportunities as they are revealed.

There are a couple of there elements that make Fantastic Factories interesting.

Firstly; dice rolling. Players will never be guaranteed getting the results and thus the resources they want. It means that players may not be able to build the card they originally wanted to and will need to adapt and react to the situation as it arises for optimal play. Of course it's always possible to play it safe and have all the required resources before getting a card, it's safer but it's also slower.
Secondly; Fantastic Factories makes use of a hand-as currency mechanic. This forces players to think ahead, players may need to get blueprint cards just to discard for another building, or may be forced to discard a blueprint they still want in order to build another, it can be a tough decision.

There's also some high level play, where it pays to watch what other players are working towards then wipe the marketplace to deny another a player a card they want.

Fantastic Factories is a well balanced game, it's rules aren't particularly complicated and are easy to learn but also have depth that comes from recognising how to exploit the available cards that appear during the game to build their engine optimally and to maximum efficiency.
​The gameplay is solid and will appeal to fans of engine building games, which I am. so I guess factories can be fantastic!

24th January 2022

It's time for some impromptu Monday gaming in lieu of Sunday and we're logged into Board Game Arena.

Can't Stop Express is the roll & write cousin to the excellent push-your-luck dice game; Cant' Stop.

Caveat: We have only ever played this game digitally.

What's in a game?

• Dice: Can't Stop Express comes with 5 six-siders, which is 1 more than Can't Stop, so something is definitely different.
• Scorecard: Each player gets their own scorecard which is a sheet full of checkboxes and looks suspiciously like a spreadsheet.
  In essence there are 11 rows numbered 2-12 (For each potential result from rolling 2 six-siders.) and each row has 10 checkboxes, 4 in 'negative', 1 in 'neutral' and 5 in 'positive.
  Each row also has a 'scoring value', this varies according to how likely that number is to come up on a roll of 2 six-siders; the rarer the number, the higher the value. The extremes 2 and 12 are worth 100 VP per positive checkmark, while the most common result 7, is only worth 30 VP per positive checkmark.
  Finally, there's another 3 rows of 8 checkboxes for tracking the 5th die.

And that's it!, Can't Stop Express is a very minimal game and that applies to all of it. I can't comment on the quality of the components, there's no art to speak of in the game and no iconography either.

How's it play?
Give each player a scorecard and you're ready to go.

​Can't Stop Express has in one regard a similar mechanic to Can't Stop, which is that after every dice roll, players are putting together 2 sets of 2 dice, the 5th die has a different role (Sic). Where Can't Stop Express differs is that once the dice are rolled, the results are used by all players simultaneously.

• Roll the dice: Once the dice have been rolled, everybody performs the following 2 actions:
• Assign pairs: All players create 2 sets of dice that will create 2 numbers from 2-12. Then, on their scorecard, all players mark off checkboxes for those numbers (Going from left-to-right.). If a player has a 4 and a 9, they would mark off the leftmost empty checkboxes on the rows for 4 and 9.
• 5th die: So what does the 5th die do? After assigning the 2 pairs, the player must​ assign the value of 5th die to one of the 3 rows in the 5th die area of the scorecard and mark off a checkbox. So if the 5th die was a 6, the player would write '6' in one of the rows and mark off the first checkbox.
• Next roll: When all players have finished assigning all their dice, the game then proceeds to the next roll and players again assign 2 sets of dice to their scorecard.
  Once again the player will need to assign the 5th die, except now it must be to one of the 2 remaining 5th die rows. This number must have a different value to the number they previously assigned, using the example above, the player must assign a value different to 6 (And mark off a checkbox.).
  After the third roll, a final unique number will be assigned to the last row. Now that 3 numbers have been to the 5th die rows, a new rule comes into play when the dice are rolled.
• 5th die restriction: From now on, whenever a player chooses which dice to assign to the 2 sets, the value of the remaining 5th die must match 1 of the 3 numbers in the 5th die rows. This means it's likely that players will not always get to choose all the dice they want for their sets because a die may be needed for it's 5th die row instead. Furthermore, every time a value is assigned to the 5th row, one of its checkboxes is marked off.
  If none of the dice match any of the 3 numbers in the rows, then they is no need to assign a 5th die.
• Scoring: There are 3 types of checkboxes in each scoring row, negative, neutral and positive, they are always marked off from left-to-right. This means starting with the 4 negative boxes which must be marked off before the neutral, which must be marked off before the positive boxes.
  Negative: Even a single marked off checkbox here reduces that row's score to -200, that's right -200! This doesn't change until after all 4 negative boxes are marked off.
  Neutral: Once all 4 negative boxes are filled, then the 5th box, i.e. the neutral checkbox can be marked off. This takes the row's score up to 0! Bargain!
  Positive: Finally, when a player gets to the positive checkboxes, each one marked off scores that row's scoring value. Each marked off positive checkbox in the 2 row would score 100 and each one in the 7 row would score 30! Bonus - literally!
  Each row has 5 positive checkboxes, so the maximum the 7 row can score is 150, any dice assigned to a maxed row add nothing to the score.

Play progresses with the dice being rolled and assigned until the endgame is reached.

Endgame
When a player fills the 8th and final checkbox in any one of their 5th die rows, then they stop scoring and the game is over for them.
Once all players can no longer score dice, the game is over and players calculate their scores for all scoring rows, rows that have no boxes checked off score 0.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
One thing I found interesting about Can't Stop Express is how it twists the paradigm of Can't Stop.

In Can't Stop, the objective is to reach the top of any 3 tracks using the results of the dice rolls, which tracks are used is unimportant; they all score a point each. Since it's much easier to get a 7 than a 2, this is balanced out by needing to get many more 7s to reach the top than you would for 2s.
The points have equal value but getting them requires varying numbers of dice results depending on the number.

In Can't Stop Express players are also trying to move along tracks but it is changed around. To reach a scoring position for both 2 and 7 requires getting the same number of pertinent results, either six 2s or 7s, but in Can't Stop Express, they score differently.
Six 7s will score 30 but six 2s will score 100 and in fact seven 2's would more than all ten 7 results.
The dice results required for each track to score are equal but they score varying amounts depending on the number.

Anyway, talk about mechanics aside, I found Can't Stop Express to be a bit of a middling game.
I like how it shares a concept with Can't Stop of setting aside 2 sets of 2 dice and it probably plays a little quicker. There's no going bust, so no 'wasted' rolls - at least in theory. Luck can mess with players in Can't Stop Express, just in a different way!
The push-your-luck element works very differently here, there are no extra dice rolls to make here. Instead players will need to judge which rows to try and fill out and it's in the planning where players push their luck, when a player decides to start marking off the checkboxes in a specific row, they're essentially gambling on that number reappearing again and again.
The 7 row is the safest bet but is not much of a scorer. The further away from 7 you move, the greater the rewards but also riskier it is to fill out 6 or more checkboxes.

​In terms of what I don't like Can't Stop Express is a game completely lacking in theme and feels a little dry (Although to be honest Can't Stop's mountain climbing theme is paper thin.).
My biggest bugbear though is the scoring; those first 4 checkboxes that penalise players 200 VPs, occasionally being forced to mark off checkboxes in rows you don't want to and watching your score drop by hundred of points can be very frustrating.
I know why it's there, it replaces drawback of going bust from Can't Stop, even so, it makes the game feel negative and I'm not fond of it.

I don't think Can't Stop Express is a bad game, mechanically speaking it's pretty solid but it lacks the extra bit of thrill that comes with deciding to re-roll the dice from Can't Stop and doesn't really bring anything new or different to the table.
I'd have no issue with playing Can't Stop Express more times but if given the choice between this and Can't Stop, I'd pick the latter every time.

15th January 2022

The Wogglecon day of gaming continued with Rolling Realms.

They see me rollin'
They hatin'
Patrollin' and tryna catch me ridin' dirty

OK, Rolling Realms isn't about rapping but it is about rolling and is a quirky little roll-and-write mini-game collection.

What's in a game?

• Realm cards: These are mini-game cards, there are 6 sets of 11 identical cards in different player colours.
  Each mini-game references a game already released by the publisher such as the Wingspan mini-game which loosely emulates the 3 habitat tracks from Wingspan. 
  Each card has a different layout and is played and scored differently and will provide resources and VPs in their own way.
  Along the bottom of each realm card is a row of 6 stars which translate into VPS.
  
• ​Dice: Rolling Realms wouldn't be much of a roll & write game without something to roll. The game makes use of pair of normal six-siders which are slightly oversized and chunky with distinct hexagonal pips, the dice feel weighty and satisfying to roll.
• Resource tracker cards: There is 1 in each player colour and they are used to track the game's 3 sets of resources; peaches, hearts and coins.
• Score/dice tracker cards: Again there is 1 in each player colour. It contains 9 sets of 2 squares to track dice rolls and along the bottom are 3 squares to track scoring and a end square to track the final score

That's pretty much it for components other than pens and wipe-cloths.

All the cards in the game feel reasonably sturdy especially since they're laminated. 
The dice are definitely a nice touch and have been manufactured with rounded corners, they're about as good as non-wooden dice can get.

Rolling Realms features almost no art except some stylistically simplistic illustrations on a few cards, which is fine as otherwise it would probably interfere with whole roll & write thing.

The game's core iconography which appears across all cards is easily comprehensible, however, each individual mini-game is likely to contain its own unique icons which must all be learned.

How's it play?
Setup

• Cards: Give each player the realm cards, score and resource tracking cards in their colour. All players should set out the scoring and resource cards in their personal playing areas.
• Prepare realms: Select a player to shuffle their realm cards into a face-down deck, draw 3 and put them out. Put the remaining realm cards aside as they will be used in later rounds
  All other players should find the same realm cards and place them out.
• Dice: Choose a player to roll the first set of dice.

On to play
Rolling Realms is played over 3 rounds and each round consists of 9 turns, which means 9 sets of dice are rolled each round, there is no turn order in the normal sense and players resolve their choices simultaneously.

• Roll the dice: The 2 dice are rolled and each should record the result as individual results on their score tracker, a result '3' & '5' should be written as '3' & '5' on the tracker.
• Resolve dice: Players then apply the dice to the mini-games as they see fit, with the following restriction.
  Each die can only be used once and each realm can only be activated once: Thus 2 realms will be activated once per turn. Although the expenditure of resources can change this. Once all players have finished their actions, play progresses to the next turn.
• Use resources: A player may spend the resources they've accumulated at any time.
  Peaches: These resources allow players to modify the result of a die up or down. They may also be spent to allow a die to be used on a realm that's already been activated, thus allowing 2 dice to be used in a single realm in a single turn.
  Hearts: Spending these resources allows a player to duplicate a die result that has been rolled, giving them an extra die to use in the realm they haven't activated.
  Coins: Coins can also be used to gain a 3rd die, its value is equal to the coins spent.
  
• Next roll: The dice are rolled again and players record the results again, then they choose how to use the dice again.
• End of round: Play progresses on until all 9 turns have been completed and scores are then calculated.
  Mini-games can score up to 6 points each, unspent resources score 0.1 VPs each. Points are then tallied in the allotted space.
• Next round: Players wipe all their resources off their resources card, regardless of whether they were spent or not. Then the tracked dice numbers should be wiped off the score tracker, obviously the round score should not be wiped off!
  ​New cards: Next, from the unused realm cards set aside earlier, randomly draw 3 more, all other players should put out the same realm cards.
  Now we're ready to begin the next round.

Endgame
Once 3 rounds have been completed, that is 9 realm cards have been used, then the game is over. Players should calculate their results from all 3 round.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Rolling Realms is undeniably unique and inventive, a game about mini-games based on games that the publisher has already released. It's impressive how the mini-games generally manage to distil a game's mechanic and/or them down to a simple, related iteration and one that makes use of numbers 1 to 6!
The game comes with 11 realm cards and the publisher has released a bunch of expansions and promo cards go along with it.

Rolling Realms balances its priorities quite well and mostly makes player decisions meaningful. Players will naturally want to focus on using dice to gain VPs but neglecting resources will give them lass flexibility later on
Because the game uses a randomiser, it's hard to plan ahead, that 6 you really need to earn you those last couple of points on a card might never appear.... That means that players need a dollop of adaptability to manage unwanted numbers and that's when resources come in useful.
Particularly useful are the abilities to generate a 3rd die result, it can essentially increase your gains by 50%.

It's hard to summarise Rolling Realms because there is a lot of little things going on, but I did enjoy it, the variation provides an interesting challenge and every round brought a new set of challenges. A game that uses a lot of mini-games risks being a mixed bag and couple were a bit more obtuse than the others but there were no outright stinkers.

Having said that, it felt like a bit of a chore having to go explain 3 sets of rules to unfamiliar players each round, especially since it seems there will always be this one player who just doesn't get something.
I also felt the game sat in weird middle-ground of being a bit too long for a filler but a bit too short for a main game for the night. The box says 30 mins, but that's highly ambitious in my opens.
These are minor quibbles though.

The mini-games are reasonable light but provides enough depth and definitely variation to keep most players engaged. It's one I'd play again

19th December 2021

We continued our Sunday gaming on Board Game Arena with Can't Stop.

Can't stop, addicted to the shindig.
Chop Top, he says I'm gonna win big.

No... wait..., this isn't a song. It's a sharp little push your luck game.

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

What's in a game?

• Game board: Can't stop uses a diamond shaped board featuring 11 vertical lines numbered 2-11. The number 2 line has 3 spaces, the spaces increase by 2 with every line until reaching 7 which has 13 spaces, then they decrease back to 3 when reaching line 12.
  This particular iteration of Can't Stop shows climbers scaling a mountain in the background.
• Dice: There are 4 normal six-siders in Can't Stop.
• Tokens: There are 4 sets of 11 tokens in 4 player colours.
• Movement tokens: There are 3 of these and they're used to track a player's moves.

That's it for components, there's not too much that can be said about such a minimalistic, almost abstract game.
The only art featured is the mountainous picture on the board which is a nice enough illustration which keeps the board from looking plain. Although it's obviously been used as a theme to fit the mechanic.
There's no iconography to the game unless you count the numbers on the dice!

How's it play?
​Setup

• Tokens: Give a set of 11 tokens of one colour to each player.
• Game board: Set out the remaining components in central playing area.
• First player: Determine the 1st player.

That's it, that's all there is to set up.

​On to play
The objective in Can't Stop is to get 3 of your 11 tokens to the top of the board (Or mountain.) first. 
Each player takes turns rolling the dice and using them to move their tokens up the lines, they can continue doing this until they choose to stop, reach the top or go bust.

• Roll the dice: The active player rolls all 4 dice and then splits them into 2 pairs in a combination of their choosing, thus there will be 2 sets of dice each showing a value between 2-12.
  Then the active player takes the movement tokens and places them on the associated vertical line on the board, either at the bottom if they haven't started on that line or above their personal token on that line.
  Thus a player can introduce/move 1 or 2 tokens per roll, or sometimes they can move 1 token twice.
  Now the active player must choose to continue or stop.
• Stop: Should the active player decide to stop, they then replace all the movement tokens on the board with their personal tokens.
  If a token has reached the stop of a line, then that line becomes 'locked out' and players cannot use that line again.
• Continue: If the active player chooses to continue, then they roll and resolve the 4 dice again.
  If either of the values is the same as a movement token already on the board, then that token is moved up a space.
  If the values do not match a movement token on the board, then a new movement must be introduced to the board if possible
  Remember; there are only 3 movement tokens available to players, once they're in play that's it.
• Bust: If at any time, even on their first roll, the active player cannot move or introduce a movement token to the board, then they go bust. Their turn is over and any movement tokens on the board are removed, their personal tokens do not change position.
• End of turn: Play progresses to the player on the left when the active player either chooses to stop rolling or goes bust.

Endgame
When a player's 3rd personal token reaches the top of a line and they stop, then they immediately win.

Overall
First off; if you don't like push-your-luck games or games that introduce significant amounts of randomness or chance, then you can probably stop read right here! Chances are that you'll hate Can't Stop. Only Joking, please keep reading! Maybe I can convince you that it's worth trying!

I think that Can't Stop is a good 'crossover' game that will appeal to casual-gamers, the luck element is a good balancing mechanism that levels the playing field somewhat and will probably prevent dedicated players from always winning, allowing players of differing levels of experience to play together. Simple rules make the game accessible to anyone.

For such simple rules, there's a few things I want to say about Can't Stop's elegant gameplay that has been stripped down to pure, distilled, unadulterated push-your-luck mechanics. There's no gimmicks here or clever twists, just you and the dice.

Speaking of dice; using 4 of them was a piece of inspiration. If the game was played with only 2 dice, it'd be too easy to predict outcomes. Any dice-slinger worth their salt would know that getting 2 or 12 is a 1-in-36 chance, or getting a 7 is 1-in-6.
Adding an extra 2 dice into the mix that need to be paired off changes everything but also sort of keeps it the same!
While it would take a little effort to try and figure out the probabilities with 4 dice, it doesn't change the fact that 7s will still be more common than 2s or 12s. The probability curve is now just skewed to some degree, how much, I don't know, l haven't bothered to make that effort to figure it out.

This is reflected in the game's design. You only need 3 2s or 12s to to reach the top, while you require 13 7s to do the same.

While luck undoubtedly plays a big part in Can't Stop, there's also some strategy involved. Like many chance based games, it's important to employ good judgement on when to push-your-luck and when not to.
It also pays to think about how dice are paired off. Generally, when you get movement markers in the 6-8 range, it's the best time to push it, there're no guarantees though...
And the longer a player can go without putting all 3 movement markers on the board, by managing the dice pairing, the better.

If I have a criticism, it's that the game can slow down towards the end as columns become locked off. We've played this 3-player frequently and at times, when players have captured 2 lines each it means 6 out of 11 lines are no longer in play so everybody ends up going bust a lot more often.

As a filler, I think Can't Stop is pretty good fun, it provides some entertainment which allows me to turn my brain off and chill out for a little while  (Provided bad rolls don't infuriate me!).
​I don't take it too seriously and neither should you.

19th October 2021

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

The first game of the night was Unearth; a dice-rolling, worker placement game set after a distant apocalypse where players command a band of 'delvers' searching for lost wonders of the long past age. Basically archaeologists sans the bullwhips and giant rock chases!

What's in a game?

• ​Ruins cards: These oversized cards come in 2 types.
  Ruins deck: There are 25 of these cards that come in 5 colours. Each card displays 2 numbers. A claims value in the top left corner and a stones value in the bottom right; more on these below.
  End of age deck: There are 5 of these cards and only 1 is ever used at a time, they only appears at the end of the game. Each card has a special rule that only comes into play when it is revealed.
• Delver cards: Conversely, delver cards are half-size. When acquired by players, they can be spent before an action to confer some sort of bonus or benefit to that action. 
• Wonders cards: The ancient world was filled with now-destroyed wonders and these cards represent those and come in 3 kinds; minor wonders, major wonders and named wonders.
  There is only 1 wonder card each for minor and major wonders (All minor wonders are identical, as are major.) but there are 15 unique named wonder cards.
• Hexagonal tokens: These six-sided tiles come in various types.
  Stone tokens: These are used to rebuild the wonders of the world and come in 5 colours.
  Minor wonders: There are 10 identical minor wonder tokens.
  Major wonders: There are 6 of these identical tokens.
  Named wonders: There are 15 unique named wonder tokens, each one attributed to one of the named wonder cards.
• Bag: Used in conjunction with the stone tiles.
• Dice: These are the workers of the game (The delvers.), there are 4 sets and each set consists of the 5 dice; an eight-sided die, three normal six-siders and a four sided dice.
• Model: This copy of the game came with a curious little model depicting a 3d version of the delvers and appears to serve no function.

​The cards and tokens are all good quality and you'd expect them to be. The dice are plastic and round edged, they roll well enough.
For the ruins cards, Unearth uses some distinct eye-catching colour palettes and isometric cuboid artwork to depict the long destroyed structures. 
For the delver cards, an almost cartoony style is used to illustrate the workers/dice.
Overall, I like the art style.
The game doesn't make much use of iconography, what there is of it is pretty simple to comprehend.

How's it play?
Setup

• Stone tokens: Place all the stone tokens into the bag and give it a good shake.
• Ruins deck: Shuffle the ruins deck and deal one card face-down to each player, this should be kept hidden.
  Then remove 5 cards, these are not used in the game.
  End of age card: Shuffle the end of age deck, draw 1 face-down and put it at the bottom of the ruins deck, thus it will be the final card drawn from the deck.
• Draw ruin cards: Draw 5 cards from the ruins deck and place in a face-up row.
  Stone tokens: Blindly draw stone tokens from the bag and place on to the face-up ruins cards; the stone value in the bottom right corner of each card will determine how many stone tokens go on each card.
• Wonders: Put out the minor and major wonder cards face-up, put the corresponding wonder tokens in a stack on each card:
  Named wonders: Shuffle the deck of named wonders and draw cards as determined by the player count, put them out face-up and place each card's unique wonder token on top of it.
• Delver cards: Shuffle the delver deck and deal 2 to each player.
• First player: Give each player a set of dice and determine the starting player.

On to play
In Unearth, players take turns and are attempting to use delvers to acquire sets of ruin cards, that is place rolled dice on ruins card and also build wonders by accumulating and placing stone.
Broadly speaking there can be 2 phases that the active player acts in, the delving phase and the building phase.

• Delver cards: The active player may choose to play 1 or more delver cards for their respective bonuses.
• Roll a die: The active player must roll a die, if they don't have a die available for any reason, then they must take back a die they previously placed on a ruins card.
  Declare: Before rolling any dice, the active player must choose which die to roll and which ruin to put it on to.
  Roll the die: The active player must roll the die they chose and place it on the ruin card they chose! What does this do, well read on.
• Results: What happens when a die is placed on a ruins card depends on what was rolled among other factors.
  1, 2 or 3: If the die result was 1 of these 3 numbers, then the active play may immediately claim a stone token from that card the die was placed on to. If the card has no tokens left on it, then they draw blindly from the bag.
  Completing a claim: After a die has been placed on a ruins card, total the value of all the dice placed on that card, if that value meets or beats the card's claims value (The number in the top left corner.), then that card can be claimed.
  The player who has a single die showing the highest value claims the card, the number of dice a player has on a card has no direct bearing other than possibly in tie-breakers. Players who lose out on claiming a card, acquire a delver card for each die they had placed on the claimed card, so it's not all bad.
  When a card is claimed, a new card is drawn to replace it.
• Building wonders: When a player acquires a stone token, they add it to their play area by placing it next to any other stone token they've acquired and increase their 'tableau'. The objective here is to create 'rings' of 6 stones and then fill the 'space' by building a wonder in the hole. There are however, some requirements.
  Minor wonder: A minor wonder can be placed in a space surrounded by tokens of any colour
  Major wonder: A major wonder must be surrounded by stone tokens of the same colour.
  Named wonders: Each unique named wonder will have it's own requirements to be met, e.g., this may include 3 of 1 colour and 3 or any other colour.
• Next player: Once the active player has completed delving and/or building, play passes to the player to the left.

Endgame
Play continues until the end of age card is revealed, any instructions on that card are immediately resolved, then play continues until all ruins cards have been claimed.
​
Players then score for each set of the same colour they've collected. Sets range from 1-5 cards and score 2-30 points per set. there are also points for sets of each colour collected.
Players can then score points from the individual wonders they've built, they also score for building 3 or more wonders.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
The sum of Unearth's parts make it a fairly unusual game. It provides 2 distinct paths to scoring points and neither can be entirely ignored.
Set collecting is one way to earn victory points and the card collecting mechanics are quite solid, giving players who fail to acquire a card some sort of other benefit and the range of dice available to players that give them a couple of options is key to this. Players can play for the card or try and play for the stones - the eight-sided die has a slightly better chance of roll higher than a six-sider and four sided die has a 75% chance of rolling 3 or lower, they each give advantage but don't guaranteed success.

The other path to victory points - building wonders requires players to both plan ahead and also adapt to opportunities and changes as they appear, collecting stones of a particular colour can always prove tricky, especially if another player is also on the hunt for stone tokens. There are also some restrictions on how stone tiles are placed and depending on what a stones a player is trying to get, placing them may require a small amount of planning and forethought.

I found Unearth a little unengaging and I can't quite put my finger on why, maybe it's the game's slightly abstract nature or maybe that it feels like little is ever happening.
Very little seems to occur in a player's turn, quite often a player rolls a dice and there's no immediate effect, sometimes they get a stone, sometimes they don't, occasionally they get a ruins card. Often it felt like that despite my decisions, little was in my control.

All of this makes the game sort of light on decision making. Players choose which ruins card to gamble a doe on and when to use a delver card, or where to place a stone token when they gain one and that's about it. There's just not that much to it.
I can't find much to fault Unearth but then I can't find much to praise it either. It's all a little unexciting.

12th September 2021


Up from the depths.
Thirty stories high.
Breathing fire!
HIS HEAD IN THE SKY!
GODZILLA!
GODZILLA!
GODZILLA!
….and Godzoo- OK, that's going too far.

Take on the role of a kaiju as they rampage against each other for the right to flatten  Tokyo!

• Power cards: These cards grant monsters powers. Some powers are once-only and discarded when used, some are always active and others can be triggered by certain criteria. Additionally, some power cards will target other players' monsters, normally to detrimental effect.
• Dice: These are not the usual six-siders, the numbers 4, 5 & 6 are replaced with a monster footprint, lighting and heart symbols.
  There are 6 black dice and 2 green ones. Mostly, players will use the black dice, some power cards allow them to use the extra 2 green dice though.
• Energy cubes: Translucent, green acrylic cubes.
• Tokens: Standard cardboard disc shaped tokens, used to track some of the power cards' abilities.

That's it for components, they're all solidly made; the monster standees and boards are thick and sturdy, it doesn't feel like the dials will fall off any time soon. The tokens, cards and acrylic are exactly what you'd expect them to be.
​The dice are very well constructed and feel satisfying weighty to heft, which is good because they be getting a of of use.
The boards, cards and standees are lavished with brash, colourful and cartoonish art, it's comical style perfectly fits both the game's style and over the top theme.
The game has little iconography which is easy to understand.

How's it play?
Setup

• ​Give each player a standee and matching monster board, each player should set the health to 10 and victory points to 0.
• Set out the main board, dice, cubes and tokens.
• Shuffle the power cards into a face-down deck and deal 3 face-up.
• Determine a starting player.

On to play
​In King of Tokyo, players take turns rolling and re-rolling dice, then using those results to try and gain some benefit to work towards their objectives. During play there will always be a monster inside Tokyo, while the others are outside, in a 5+ player game, there can be 2 monsters inside Tokyo.
A turn goes like this.

• Dice: The active player rolls the 6 black dice.
  Rerolls: After the 1st roll, the active player may choose to set aside any number of dice and reroll the remaining. They may choose to set aside 0 dice or all of them (Although this would end their rolling.).
  They may then reroll those remaining dice that were not put aside; after this roll, they may put aside any number of those dice, they may even add back in dice they put aside in the previous roll.
  Finally, the active player may have a final 2nd reroll (3rd roll in total.) of the dice not set aside. Now the results on all the dice must be resolved.
• Results:
  3-of-a-kind: If the active player got 3-of-a-kind for the numerical results, then they score victory points for that base number. If they rolled 1, 1 & 1, then they score 1 point, if they roll 3, 3 & 3, they would score 3 points.
  Getting more matching numbers, increase the score per matching die. Thus getting a result of 2, 2, 2, 2, & 2 would earn the active player 4 victory points.
  Footprint: The footprint stomps enemies! Each footprint does a point of damage.
  If the active player is outside Tokyo, the damage dealt to the monster inside Tokyo, if the active player is inside Tokyo, the damage is dealt to every monster outside Tokyo!
  If a monster has it's health reduced to 0, it is eliminated from the game.
  Heart: For every heart result the active player has rolled, they are healed 1 damage, however, monsters inside Tokyo cannot heal.
  Energy: Each energy result gains the active player 1 energy cube.
• Buy power card: Once the dice have been resolved, the active player can spend their energy cubes to buy 1 or more power cards.
  Alternatively, the active player may spend 2 energy to clear away the 3 available power cards and replace them with 3 new ones.
• Next player: Play proceeds with the player to the left.

Rules for Tokyo

• If a Tokyo space is empty, the active player's monster must enter it.
• A player earns a victory point for entering Tokyo.
• A player beginning their turn in Tokyo earns 2 victory points.
• A player's monster cannot leave Tokyo, they can only yield it to a player who has just damaged them.

Endgame
Play continues until one of two conditions are met.
A player has reached 20 victory points - in which they immediately win or all monster bar one have had their health reduced to 0, in which case the last monster standing wins.

Overall
King of Tokyo is a push-your-luck game with a difference, most other games of this type task players with essentially beating the odds and doing so more efficiently than other players, getting to whatever the victory criteria is first. But King of Tokyo has an extra wrinkle, in King of Tokyo, players can target and eliminate other players, I'm not a fan of player elimination but it gives the game an extra approach and dimension to gameplay. Not only that, players will look to prioritise different results at different times, if they're low on health; they'll want hearts. If there's a power card they like the look of; they'll want energy.

The rules for getting into Tokyo compliment this well.

Getting into Tokyo works for scoring points or attacking enemies.
There's an inherent risk to do so, because it makes that player the central target. Managing to stick it out in Tokyo however, earns the player 2 victory points per turn, which on the surface might not seem like much but is actually 10% of the required victory score. Additionally, being in Tokyo is the best way to dish out damage to all other players, hit them hard enough and they'll probably want to heal instead of attack, giving the player in Tokyo more time, because sometimes, attacking the player in Tokyo is a risk. A canny player might yield Tokyo to another player who is low on health because it then puts them on the spot!

Throw the usage of power cards into the mix and King of Tokyo becomes an enjoyable blend of strategy, risk and reward and push-your-luck mechanics. Furthermore, players will need to adapt to the unpredictability the game sends their way.

King of Tokyo is a easy to learn, light and fun game not to be taken too seriously, it's perhaps a little too long for a filler game but is definitely worth trying, especially if you're a fan of push-your-luck games.

29th July 2021

Thursday is here and it's time for some gaming on Board Game Arena.

If racing isn't your thing but rolling is, then maybe you'll prefer Roll for The Galaxy to the excellent Race for The Galaxy.
​
Roll for The Galaxy is a follow up to the aforementioned game and both are thematically similar. Both games have the same 5 phases (Although not in the same order!) and both are about are about building settlements and developments to create an engine building tableau in order to win.
Mechanically, there are numerous differences though. Roll for The Galaxy uses lots of different dice and dice rolling to manage phases as well as provide workers to build with. Gone is the card-based economy of Roll for the Galaxy.

What's in a game?

• ​​Dice: Lots of six-siders in a variety of colours, each colour having a different distribution of the game's 6 different symbols.
  ​Players of Race for The Galaxy will recognise many of the elements and colours used below.
  • Home dice: (White.) These are essentially the game's default starting dice. 2 faces show the Explore icon, the remaining faces show Develop, Settle, Produce and Ship.
  • Military dice: (Red.) 1 face on a military die will show Explore, 2 show Develop and 2 show Settle, the final face shows the Wild symbol, an asterisk.
  • Consumption dice: (Purple.) 1 side shows Explore, another shows Develop, 3 faces show Ship and again, the final face shows the Wild symbol.
  • Novelty dice: (Blue.) This die type has 1 Explore, 2 Produce, 2 Ship and 1 Wild face.
  • Rare Elements dice: (Tan.) 1 Explore, 2 Develop, 1 Produce, 1 Ship and 1 Wild face.
  • Genes dice: (Green.) 1 Explore, 2 Settle, 1 Produce and 2 Wild faces.
  • Alien Technology dice: (Yellow.) Finally this die has 1 Develop, 1 Settle, 1 Produce and 3(!) Wild faces.
    Thus, utilising different dice will give players different results and consequently, different options. Some dice are more powerful than others but also rarer and harder to acquire.
• Player screen: Each player will have a screen to hide their initial dice rolls from other players, these screens also display a condensed list of rules.
• Player tile: These large tiles have a cup space (To show what goes into the player's cup.), a Citizenry space (More on this later.) and a construction zone.
  The construction zone has a square space each for a development tile and a settlement tile, finally there's also a currency track which goes from 0-10.
• Phase strip tile: This little rectangular tile has a line of 5 symbols to represent the game's 5 phases.
• Home world tiles: There are 9 of these home world tiles which are the game's starting tiles. Each home world will have it's own special ability.
• Faction tiles: These rectangular tiles are twice as wide as home world tiles. Each of these 9 tiles also confers special abilities
• Game Tiles: These square tiles are double sided and the same size as home world tiles. One side always shows a development and the other a settlement. They also list cost and any special ability or bonus they possess.
  • Developments: Usually give the controlling player some sort of bonus or special action.
  • Settlements: Apart from non-coloured settlements, there are 4 types of settlement; Novelty, Rare Elements, Genes, & Alien Tech. Usually players gain extra dice of those types of dice when constructing settlements, as well as the ability to produce and trade goods of those colours..
• Tile bag: used to blindly draw random game tiles.
• Currency meeple: A meeple token used to track currency.
• Dice cup: Each player will have their own cup for dice rolling.
• Victory points tokens: Self explanatory.
• Phase tiles: These 5 largish square titles are used to track phases, each tile is double sided and has a active and inactive face.

The most important component here are the dice, they well made and colourful with clear iconography.
All the games tiles are made of sturdy grey board and are suitably thick.
The currency meeple is a nice little wooden token that matches colour with a dice cup, speaking of which, the cups are made of pretty standard plastic but are easily tough enough to stand up to repeated use.
Finally, the victory tokens are made of standard card token chips and are probably the most average component in the game, which is to say the components are all good quality.
Anyone familiar with Race for The Galaxy will recognise the art style on the tiles. How much of it is new and how much is recycled from Race, I couldn't say. Ultimately though, it's fairly good artwork.

How's it play?
​Setup

• Put out a number of victory point tokens equal to the number of players x 12, thus 12-60 VP tokens.
• Put out the 5 phase tiles, inactive side-up.
• Put the game tiles into the bag and give it a good shake.
• Randomly deal a faction tile and a home world tile to each player. Place the home world tile on the right side of the faction tile. This forms the player's starting tableau which has a size of 3.
• Give each player:
  A dice cup.
  A phase strip tile.
  A currency meeple.
• Each player now blindly draws 2 game tiles from the back. One must be placed on the development space on their player tile and the other on the settlement space, players are free to choose which way round they do it. These 2 tiles are now in construction.
• All players take 3 white home dice and place it on the cup space on their player tile, then they take 2 more home dice and place it on the citizenry space on their player tile.
• Depending on their faction tile and home world, players will take extra dice and place them on the cup or citizenry space, or as a good on one of their starting tiles.
• Put the currency meeple on the 1 space on the player board's currency track.

​On to play.
Roll for The Galaxy is played out over 5 different steps, each player carries out each step simultaneously.

• Roll: Players take all the dice on the cup space on their player board, places them into their dice cup and rolls them secretly behind their screen.
• Assign: This sound trickier than it actually is in play.
  From behind their screen, players secretly place all dice into columns below the phase strip spots matching the symbols that were rolled on the dice. E.G., if a player has 2 dice that came up with the development symbol, they must all be placed in a column below the development symbol on the phase strip tile. An asterisk result can be placed under any phase symbol. During this step, any single die can be discarded back to the cup to move another die to any column. The number of dice in a column beneath a phase determines the number of actions the player will gain if that phase becomes active.
  Next, each player takes any single die from any column and places it on to one of the 5 phase symbols on their phase strip tile, the die can be placed on to any phase, regardless of what face the die has showing. This will activate that phase during the phases step.
• Reveal: Now players move their screens to reveal their dice.
  For each phase chosen by a player, flip the respective phase tile from inactive to active, these are the phases that will be played in this round. The remaining phases stay inactive. Any players who has dice in a column under a phase that is inactive returns those dice to their cup.
• Phases: This is where the bulk of the game occurs, if a phase is activated by any player, then all players may act in it (Provided they have dice below the pertinent phase. From 1 to 5 phases may be played and they are always played out in the order shown below.
  • Phase I - Explore: When this phase is activated, for each die a player has under the Explore symbol on their phase strip tile, they may blindly draw a tile from the bag and place it on to their tile, because game tiles are double-sided, the player may choose which side to use. However, there can only ever be one development and one settlement in construction at a time, additional developments and settlements must be stacked beneath the respective tiles.
    Alternatively, a player may increase their currency by 2 for each explore die they have.
  • Phase II - Develop: If this phase is activated, each die that a player has under their Develop symbol can be transferred on to the development tile they have in construction. If the number of dice on the tile equals the cost then that development is completed. The completed tile is put into that player's tableau and the dice are returned to the Citizenry space on their player tile.
    If there are not enough dice to complete the construction, then those dice stay there until the construction is completed or abandoned.
  • Phase III - Settle: This works identically to the Develop phase above, only with settlements
  • Phase IV - Produce: If this phase is activated, each die the player has beneath the Produce symbol may transferred to a settlement in their tableau that can produce goods and stays there as a goods die.
  • Phase V - Ship: For each die beneath the Ship symbol, the player may trade goods on settlements for a victory point each or currency. These dice are removed from their settlements and returned to their player's Citizenry space.
    When trading for victory points, players earn more points if the goods dice and/or the trading die's colour matches that of the settlement the player is trading from. Thus a blue planet with a blue goods die and a blue trading die would earn 1+1+1 victory points.
    If a goods die is traded for currency, the colour of the settlement determines how much the player earns; from 3 for Novelty goods to 6 for Alien Technology.
• Manage Empire: Once all the phases are completed, it's time to do some management. Managers - even in space to you can't avoid them.
  • Recruit: You may have noticed that for most actions, dice are returned to the Citizenry space. In order for a player to gain use of them again, they must pay 1 currency per die, which moves them into the player's cup.
  • Recall: A player may move die used a goods back to their cup for free, they may also move dice from uncompleted developments and settlements back to their cup for free.
  • Flip Phase Tiles: Turn all activated phase tiles over to their inactive side in preparation for the next round.

That's it, play progresses to a new round, now players secretly roll dice and allocate them again.

Endgame
Play progresses until either a player has completed the 12th tile in their tableau, or the supply of victory point tokens has been depleted.
Players now calculate the total cost/value of completed tiles in their tableau and victory points accumulated, furthermore; some developments will have criteria that score players additional points.
All points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Players of Race for The Galaxy (Like me!) will recognise a lot of familiar theme and ideas in Roll for The Galaxy, it's quite clever how this has been achieved, although there are some differences.

For example; in Race for The Galaxy, a player's hand is also their currency, in Roll for the Galaxy though, players have no hand. The game introduces a currency track to replicate this and at first I thought it felt a little superfluous, after all, currency is only used to recover dice from the Citizenry space, then I realised without the need for currency, the decision to choose between a game tile and currency in the Explore phase becomes unnecessary as does the decision to to choose between victory points and currency in the Ship phase.
There is no military score, instead military dice provide extra opportunities to develop and settle.
Curiously, Roll for The Galaxy swaps the Produce and Ship/Consume phases round and trading is now the 5th and final phase. I guess that this decision was taken to make it a little easier to players to produce and then trade goods in the same round?
Additionally, because Roll for the Galaxy is a 5-player game, it possible for all phases to be activated. It's never been possible to activate more than 4 phases in Race for The Galaxy.
Finally; constructing developments and settlements is quite different: In Race for The Galaxy, it's a all-or-nothing affair, either you have the cards to pay for a development/settlement or you don't. Roll for The Galaxy allows player to incrementally pay for them, however, this ties up dice in construction, as a consequence players will have less dice and therefore less choices When rolling at the start of the round.

But enough of talking about another game, let's talk about Roll for The Galaxy.

In Roll for The Galaxy, players will be to some extent at the mercy of the dice they roll at the start of a round. If you're looking to finish constructing a settlement and you get no settlement dice - tough luck!
Obviously there are rules to mitigate some of this and furthermore, correct usage of the different types of dice (Provided you get hold of them.) at the right time can be helpful and skew results in a player's favour. But on occasion, players will have to react to dice rolls that just don't go their way! Adaptation is the key here. Even so, it can prove frustrating at times when you can't do what you want to. Additionally, acquiring certain types of dice which may push players into strategies they hadn't considered before, 
Another aspect to remember when assigning dice, is to pay attention to what other players have been doing, successfully anticipating another player's choice of action can prove useful and provide extra actions to spend.

Players must balance the need to acquire developments and settlements with the need to produce and trade, this also means balancing the use of limited resources to construct improvements with the need to have actions.
Building an engine is vital, getting the special abilities provided is important, but so is acquiring extra dice to roll, which gives players more choices elsewhere.
Players will want to do all of this as efficiently as possible to outpace their opponents

In short; Roll for The Galaxy always provides players with meaningful decisions.

I'd happily play Roll for The Galaxy again in the future, but given the choice between this and Race for The Galaxy, I'd choose the latter every time. Roll for the Galaxy is a good and fun game but I sometimes find the randomness off putting. If dice games are your thing over card games for some reason, Roll for the Galaxy is definitely worth a look.